Backwards masking as a cultural phenomenon has its popular roots in the Beatles and their 1966 album "Revolver."

In general, it describes reversing a piece of music or vocals and laying it in a forward playing track. Basically what you would say in a forwards motion is recorded then reversed and replayed backwards with media going in a linear "forward" fashion.

Over the years there have been many accusations of backwards masking used in music to produce satanic messages, but the evidence was lacking. Some artists have parodied this idea, others have used it to include Christian messages.

This article isn't about debating the merits for or against. Its about showing how you can potentially find these things for yourselves. My favorite song with backmasking to date is "Backmaskwarning," by Mindless Self Indulgence.

I first noted the idea of something hidden in this track due to the opening lyrics that told me to "play that record backwards," and then looked to the bands website at that time to find that they stated "There were no hidden tracks found...yet."

Well, by the way the song sounds when it nears ending you can tell someone is saying something backwards. And I was right. 

Far from debating the band overall, lets stick with this track. MSI themselves are what you would call an "electronic punk" band, and I realize most people would not care to here someone rave over them. So I'm not going to.

Before we begin this project, I'm going to stay in my element and stick with what I work with. I'm not advocating anything as better or less, I'm just going with what I know. 

What you will need to complete this tutorial by yourself is a free copy of a software called "Audacity," which can be downloaded via a link on this Hub.

You will obviously also need a copy of the song "Backmaskwarning!" by Mindless Self Indulgence. This track was on their album "Frankenstein Girls Will Seem Strangely Sexy". Sadly, I can't produce a copy for this purpose legally for you. You're up to your own means to get this piece of the puzzle. However, I will provide a link to a clip of the final version hosted on YouTube later.

I already assume the majority of you are familiar with installing and running programs. If you are not, I will be happy to help you.

So lets take a look at the program window when you have it installed and ready to go:

Note my bad notations. We see that the program is set up simply, with minimal fuss. There's a play, pause, and stop function. And there's a function to open/save a file. What file are we going to open? Why, our file of the track Backmaskwarning.

Click on "File," choose to "Open" and navigate to the folder where your copy of said track is. Please note that Audacity, as with many programs, works with common formats. MP3s and Wavs, mostly. If you purchase this track digitally you will not want to buy it from iTunes, Microsoft, or any store that uses other (restricted) file formats. I recommend Amazon personally.

Here's a picture of Audacity with the track open:

By clicking to the left of the track you are selecting the whole of the song in its entirety. Next, click up to the "Effect" menu and drop it down. Click on "Reverse."

If you've not listened to this song yet, do so now. Listen to how it begins when in reverse.

After we've listened to the track, we note that if you listen faintly you can hear a woman's voice saying various things in the background up til about 48 seconds into the track. 

If you can't understand her just yet, don't worry. You may have to listen to it a few times. It took me a few replays to get it down. You can also click at the bottom of the page through a link of it on YouTube.

The next step will be to select the track and cut it.

Take your cursor and position it next to the track beginning, right before or after the blue lines begin. Drag it to about the 50 second mark, then click on the "cut" icon or move your cursor up to the "Edit" menu and cut it there.

Now remember the 'File' menu? We're going to click on it and select 'New' to give us an empty Audacity workspace. Now what? In that newly created empty work space click "Edit" and "Paste."

You'll now find your selection of the track now all alone by it's self. You may close your first window of Audacity, and you have no need to save your work. Especially if you're working with the original file. Leave the new workspace open.

By now you've got a track running in reverse at about fifty seconds in length. How do you save it and play it by it's self? What if for some reason you want to record it to a CD? This is the final step, and its rather simple.

Click "File," choose to "Export WAV," name said file, and save it. You'll want to remember where you put it, of course. And now, whenever you want, you can pull up this shortened file and show people that yes, there is actually words spoken in reverse in music.

I hope you found this tutorial helpful. I would appreciate feedback and comments, as well as suggestions on how to improve this tutorial and where you would like me to go in the future in relations to digital audio recording and editing.

While not my first tutorial/HOWTO: its definitely been awhile since I've written something of this nature and scope. I hope to make refinements and adjustments in my style as I continue on. But I can't please anyone unless you take the time to give me some accurate and useful comments. Thank you!