BACK PLAY

Spinning the record upside down backwards

One neat trick to pull off at parties is to play the record backwards so the track gets played from the end of the record to the beginning. It's called back playing. This trick can be pulled off on any turntable that has a T4P cartridge mount and a removable counter weight. Here's how it's done.

1. Take the head shell off the tone arm, turn it upside down and put it back on the tone arm.
2. Before putting a record on the platter, find something to put on it that will raise the record high enough to clear the tone arm and the now reversed cartridge. Here I used a roll of duck tape.
3. Put some weight on the record to keep it steady. You can use just about anything. Here I used a tea cup. don't put anything too heavy though. The motor wasn't designed for it.
4. Move the tone arm weight all the way to the end so it forces the head shell end to rise. It will be very "floaty" but you can give it enough weight to track properly while upside down.
5. Place the needle at the END of the song and Push start. The record will now play from end to beginning and the song will sound backwards.

An important thing to remember is to not try to cue the record by touching it. Put your hand on the slipmat and cue by rotating it, the whole assembly will cue along. Be careful though, if you use too much force or are to quick to cue, inertia will kick in and the whole assembly can come topling down. Looks very bad, big tears will come rolling down your face, the world might end.

It's a touchy setup but it has it's uses. An example would be to beat mix a reversed beat loop over a normal track. It sounds really cool and looks really good live! I've done it with a crushed coke can and my shoe as the weight. It's a fun trick. Be careful when you are cueing the record though. This setup is fragile and it's easy to mess things up when playing under pressure. This is a trick to try when you are having a good day at the tables.

 


 

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