Removing Profanity From Mixes (when needed)?

Greg_L said:
How about a tugboat horn? Dog bark? Rooster crow? Fart sound? An infant's laughter? Wilhelm scream?
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You mean...


Like a lot of mix advice, this one gets better the earlier in the process you can address it.

Best option: write the song such that you don't need to do alternate, radio-friendly mixes
Good option: Record an alternate take with an alternate word using the original vocalist and drop that into the alternate mix.
Ok option: Reverse, distort, mute, or replace the word in the isolated vocal track in the alt mix.
Bad option: Conceal the word in the master.

I assume it's just one beat worth of cursing (and not a long, poly-syllabic thing)? If so, line up your edits with the beat you need to censor, and you should get smoother results. (e.g. Reverse or mute the entire beat where the swear occurs.)
 
If you do have a word which spans several beats or pitches, I'd reverse each beat/pitch individually rather than reversing the whole phrase.
That way you retain melodic integrity and probably get that DJ scratch effect to some extent.
 
Another option:

Just keep the profanity in there. Whatever the reason for the profanity, be it shock value, angst, frustration, social/political commentary, or just simple dumb idiocy, it's there for a reason.
 
I appreciate all the suggestions and validity to keep it in or don't do it in the first place, but that really isn't the question. This is simply a thread to figure out how to treat it if you have to.
 
Hey man, censorship is un-American. You can take your commie thread and...

...wait, now I remember. Censorship is SUPPOSED to be un-American. It's actually quite American. That being the case, I feel rather unpatriotic that I don't know how to do what you're asking. I'll have to watch my DVD of "The Green Berets" again tomorrow.
 
1) Highlight the word in question in Cubase,
a) on the vocal track and hit audio > process > reverse.
b) delete the selection
c) replace with some for of SFX

It's really not rocket science.

But for the record I'm against this practice unless you've been specifically asked for a (clean) radio edit AND have all the creative rights for the song (or the blessing of the artist)

Words are very fucking powerful things and if the artist wanted it to be there its meant to be there.
 
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