From Thomas Dimuzio
The first allows you to listen to the song in reverse, but in a forwards direction (so you can still hum along with the melody).
Stairway to Heaven (forwards-backwards)
http://www.gench.com/trove/Yawriats_Ot_Nevaeh.mp3 (broken link)
http://music.columbia.edu/~douglas/Yawriats_Ot_Nevaeh.mp3 (douglas mirror)
The second, which is my particular fav, plays the song backwards, but in a forward direction (so it doesn't sound backwards). The result is an entirely new piece!
Stairway to Heaven (backwards-forwards)
http://www.gench.com/trove/Nevaeh_Ot_Yawriats.mp3 (broken link)
http://music.columbia.edu/~douglas/Nevaeh_Ot_Yawriats.mp3 (douglas mirror)
Stairway Steps To Heaven:
1. Tempo-map the piece (I did this measure by measure, which accounts for a few of the "tiered" tempo modulations)
2. Cut the tempo-mapped measures into quarter note regions
3. Reverse the playback order of the quarter notes so that they play from end to beginning (e.g. 666, 665, 664, ... 3, 2, 1 - yes, the last region was numbered 666, so it's true, Zep signed a pact with the devil)
4. Add crossfades (75 ms) to unify the regions
Result: This is the backwards/forwards variation.
5. Bounce the backwards/forwards variation so that it becomes a single linear file
6. Reverse the file
Result: This is the forwards/backwards variation.
So it was a boring day at Digidesign and I figured I'd have some fun with a 70's classic while banging on these new tempo features in Pro Tools.
I tell ya, that guitar solo and instrumental section (on the original) is out of this world!!! Fun to analyze and scrutinize such a classic.
They don't make' em like they used to, then again Pro Tools is killing modern music. Er, speaking of, I'm running late for work again...
-TD