texture of the recording by taping the backing track "faster than normal". When played back, slightly slower than the usual speed, "the music had a radically different tonal quality." The opposite technique was used to alter the tone of Lennon's lead vocal: it was recorded with the tape machine slowed down, making Lennon's voice sound higher when played back. Lennon played a 1965 Gretsch Nashville, McCartney a 1964 Rickenbacker 4001S bass, Harrison a 1964 Gibson SG, and Starr Ludwig drums. To boost the bass signal, Emerick recorded McCartney's amplifier via a loudspeaker, which EMI technical engineer Ken Townsend had reconfigured to serve as a microphone. Although this technique was used only on the two songs selected for the standalone single, an enhanced bass sound was a characteristic of much of Revolver. The increased volume of the bass guitar contravened EMI regulations, which were born out of concern that the powerful sound would cause a record buyer's stylus to jump. The "Paperback Writer" / "Rain" single was therefore the first release to use a device invented by the maintenance department at EMI called Automatic Transient Overload Control (ATOC). The new device allowed the record to be cut at a louder volume than any other single up to that time. Backwards sounds The coda of "Rain" includes backwards vocals, which Lennon later stated was the first use of this technique on a record. Edited together from Lennon's vocal track, the backwards portion consists of him singing the word "sunshine", then a drawn-out "rain" taken from one of the choruses, and finally the song's opening line, "If the rain comes they run and hide their heads". In author Robert Rodriguez's description, accompanied by the backing vocalists singing the song title on another track, Lennon's vocal "evoked the sound of a blissed-out zealot speaking in tongues in a trancelike state". Both Lennon and producer George Martin claimed credit for the idea. Lennon said in 1966: Harrison confirmed Lennon's creative accident, as did Emerick, but Martin told Beatles historian Mark Lewisohn in 1987: Lennon repeated his version of events in a 1968 interview with Jonathan Cott of Rolling Stone. In a 1980 interview, Lennon recalled: Regardless of who is credited for the technique, "from that point on", Emerick wrote, "almost every overdub we did on Revolver had to be tried backwards as well as forwards." Release and reception "Rain" was released as the B-side to