Reverse the high and low points of a mono waveform by reversing the polarity of the mono track. Most DAWs and many mixers have a button to reverse track polarity. It often happens in a recording studio there is a need to reverse phase.

Here is one example that is easy to visualize: If you have two microphones on a snare drum one microphone is likely pointed at the top snare head and the second at the bottom snare head. When the top snare head is hit the head distorts downward into the drum body while the bottom snare head bulges outward and away from the drum body. Likewise the two microphones will react to sound waves that move in opposite direction from each other. Without a way to reverse signal polarity the two sounds cancel each other out.

Another example: Condenser microphone cables provide power to the condenser microphone and return the signal to the amplifier, console, recorder, audio interface or whatever. In the US condenser power is lead 2 is hot and lead 3 is ground. But it is easy to make the connections incorrectly so that wire 2 is ground and wire 3 is hot. When tht happens the microphone still works but the waveform is reversed.

Jim Fogle - 2025 BiaB (Build 1128) RB (Build 5) - Ultra+ PAK
DAWs: Cakewalk Sonar - Standalone: Zoom MRS-8
Laptop: i3 Win 10, 8GB ram 500GB HDD
Desktop: i7 Win 11, 12GB ram 256GB SSD, 4 TB HDD
Music at: https://fogle622.wix.com/fogle622-audio-home