DaVinci Resolve reverses audio through its retime system rather than an audio effect. Put the clip on a timeline, right-click it, choose Change Clip Speed, tick Reverse Speed, and click Change — the clip now plays back to front. Retime Controls (Command+R on macOS, Control+R on Windows) does the same job with a per-segment option. There is no Reverse entry in the effects library.
Where is the reverse option in DaVinci Resolve?
In the retime dialog, which is why searching the Effects Library or the Fairlight FX list turns up nothing. Resolve treats reversal as a playback-rate property of a timeline clip: a negative rate, rather than a processor you drop on the track.
The direct route is on the Edit page. Select the clip in the timeline, right-click it, and choose Change Clip Speed. The dialog that opens holds the speed as frames per second, a percentage, and a duration, plus four checkboxes — Ripple Sequence, Pitch Correction, Reverse Speed, and Freeze Frame. Tick Reverse Speed and click Change.
Leave the speed at 100% unless you specifically want the clip longer or shorter. At 100% reversed, Resolve is playing exactly the same samples in the opposite order, so nothing about the sound changes except direction — no pitch shift, no duration change, no quality loss. Once you move off 100%, the length changes and the pitch follows it, which is what the Pitch Correction checkbox is there to stop.
Reversed clips get a small marker in the timeline showing the negative rate, so you can tell at a glance which items are flipped.
What do Retime Controls do differently?
They let you reverse part of a clip instead of all of it. Select the clip and press Command+R (Control+R on Windows) — or right-click and choose Retime Controls — and a retime bar appears across the top of the clip with a dropdown arrow at the bottom.
That dropdown holds preset speed changes, Freeze Frame, Reset, and Reverse Segment. The word segment is the point. Drag speed-change markers into the retime bar to split the clip into sections, then reverse one section while the rest plays forward. The Change Clip Speed dialog cannot do that — it applies one rate to the whole clip.
For a straight full-clip flip, the two methods produce identical results, so use whichever is fewer clicks. For a vocal that runs forward, reverses for two bars, then runs forward again, Retime Controls is the only built-in way to get there without cutting the clip into three pieces first.
Why won’t the audio follow when I reverse the clip?
Usually because the audio was never selected. Linked video and audio move together in the timeline, but a retime applied to a selection that Resolve read as video-only leaves the sound untouched. Right-click and unlink first, then click the audio item specifically and confirm the retime bar appears over it, not the video above.
The second cause is a compound clip. Retiming a compound clip applies to the container, and nested audio does not always behave the way you expect underneath it. If a reversed compound sounds wrong, open it, reverse the audio clip inside, and close it again.
The third is real-time playback rather than the edit itself. Reading a file backwards is harder work than reading it forwards, so long clips can stutter on the first pass while everything else looks correct. Render cache the timeline and play it again before assuming the reverse failed.
If none of that clears it, take the audio out of Resolve entirely: render the section as a Wave file, flip it in a free audio reverser in your browser, and reimport the result as a normal forward-playing clip. Nothing uploads, and the file comes back as a WAV you can drop straight onto the track.
Which reversal method should you use?
Four routes get you a reversed audio file, and they differ in scope more than in quality — the flip itself is the same sample reordering in every case.
| Method | Reverses | Partial clip | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Change Clip Speed dialog | Whole timeline clip | No | The standard full-clip flip |
| Retime Controls | Selected segment | Yes | Reversing a section mid-clip |
| Compound clip, then retime | Multiple clips at once | No | Flipping an edited group as one unit |
| Browser reverser, then reimport | The rendered file | No | Getting a clean reversed WAV out of the pipeline |
Pick the dialog for everyday work. Reach for Retime Controls when the reversal has to start and stop inside a single clip. Use a compound clip when several stacked items need to flip together and keep their relative timing. Send it out to the browser tool when you want a reversed file that carries no retime property with it — useful if the audio is heading to another editor, or to someone else’s project.
How do you export just the reversed audio?
On the Deliver page. Set the timeline in and out points around the section you want, then open the render settings on the left.
In the Video tab, untick Export Video. The format options switch to audio-only choices. In the Audio tab, confirm Export Audio is on and pick Wave — uncompressed, no re-encode, so the reversed file is sample-for-sample what you heard on the timeline. AIFF behaves the same way. Name the file, choose a location, click Add to Render Queue, then Render All on the right.
Bit depth and sample rate come from project settings rather than the render panel, so if the destination needs 48 kHz specifically, check File → Project Settings → Master Settings before rendering. For a comparison with how another NLE handles this, see how to reverse audio in Premiere Pro; for region-level editing that Resolve does not do well, Audacity’s Effect → Reverse works on any selection you highlight.
What if the sound starts on a phone?
Record it there and flip it before it reaches the timeline. Reverse Audio PRO records, reverses, and plays back on one screen, which is faster than importing a voice memo into Resolve just to apply a retime. Recording, reversing, and playback are free. The paid tier adds playback speed from 0.25× to 3.0×, pitch shifting up to ±12 semitones, ten effects, and WAV/M4A export, sold as a weekly or yearly subscription or a one-time lifetime purchase.
Speed is the control that earns its keep for edit work: a reversed hit at 0.5× runs twice as long and drops an octave, which is the standard recipe for a transition sound you would otherwise build with three retimes in Resolve. Platform walkthroughs are at reverse audio on iPhone and on Android.