Conservative Markets / Edits

[butlerguy03]

I am in a very conservative situation with a modern AC. Anyone have editing experience to share a few tips? I'm getting experience quickly (hell, damn won't fly here). Would labels or promoters do an edit or send the instrumental for a small market if asked?

Here's an example of what I mean: can't play KT Tunstall "suddenly I see" because of the repeated "hell". I've had to edit damn out of Adam Lambert, and hell out of Sara Bareilles.

 

[Dick Skinner]

I am in a very conservative situation with a modern AC. Anyone have editing experience to share a few tips? I'm getting experience quickly (hell, damn won't fly here). Would labels or promoters do an edit or send the instrumental for a small market if asked?

Here's an example of what I mean: can't play KT Tunstall "suddenly I see" because of the repeated "hell". I've had to edit damn out of Adam Lambert, and hell out of Sara Bareilles.

Conservative is putting it lightly, butterguy. Are you in Amish country? Seriously, though, don't expect any help from the labels. They usually send out edits of the 7 words, but hell and damn aren't even on the radar. Your only option is to load them into an editing program - audacity is free if your don't have one and works great for this kind of job - and start cutting and pasting. It's a good way to sharpen your editing skills. Good luck with your Taliban owners, Bro.

 

[GeneSavage]

Assuming you have Adobe Audition or Cool Edit, you MIGHT be able to remove a word or two by going into the stereo panning options and reversing the polarity of one channel. If the vocal is dead-center and there's no stereo reverb, the word should (at least mostly) disappear.

Occasionally I've used a combination of tricks: preserve everything below about 200 Hz as the original stereo file, then sum-out the vocals, then low-pass filter if needed to get rid of vocal "smear" (in which case an original stereo file of everything over about 6 or 8 Khz will be needed)... if that isn't enough, sometimes I'll go ahead and reverse all or part of where the offending word was.

As mentioned above, sometimes you can paste from another part of the song (grab a beat from the instrumental intro, etc) or echo a phrase right in beat "...but she ain't messin' with no broke / broke..."

If all else fails, sound effects can be used effectively (or for comic relief!). I took Casey Casem's rant about doing a dead dog dedication out of an uptempo record and replaced one word with a slower, lower pitched doorbell and the other word with a faster, higher pitched doorbell. If anything, it sounds funnier now than if I'd left it alone. ;D

The free Audacity should be able to do similar tricks, I suspect.

Good luck with this; I was working at an R&B station when Snoop Dog hit... and we had NO digital editing. The radio edit wasn't clean enough for my boss, so I ended up in the production studio with a 4-track and the instrumental, punching back and forth for a live edit / dub to cart. Aarugh! I don't miss those days. :

 

[butlerguy03]

Thanks for the useful info, NightAire. I'll take it to the studio tomorrow! Every time I have tried to drop lyrics, it has a thin (or tinny) sound. Do you have an example song that you've used this technique with?

I just wish I got the instrumental with all singles, it would make it so much easier!

 

[12 In a Row]

I am in a very conservative situation with a modern AC. Anyone have editing experience to share a few tips? I'm getting experience quickly (hell, damn won't fly here). Would labels or promoters do an edit or send the instrumental for a small market if asked?

Here's an example of what I mean: can't play KT Tunstall "suddenly I see" because of the repeated "hell". I've had to edit damn out of Adam Lambert, and hell out of Sara Bareilles.

Well H E double hockey sticks, what century is your boss living in?

 

[butlerguy03]

I am in a very conservative situation with a modern AC. Anyone have editing experience to share a few tips? I'm getting experience quickly (hell, damn won't fly here). Would labels or promoters do an edit or send the instrumental for a small market if asked?

Here's an example of what I mean: can't play KT Tunstall "suddenly I see" because of the repeated "hell". I've had to edit damn out of Adam Lambert, and hell out of Sara Bareilles.

Well H E double hockey sticks, what century is your boss living in?

Does it matter? It's my job.

 

[Dick Skinner]

Assuming you have Adobe Audition or Cool Edit, you MIGHT be able to remove a word or two by going into the stereo panning options and reversing the polarity of one channel. If the vocal is dead-center and there's no stereo reverb, the word should (at least mostly) disappear.

Occasionally I've used a combination of tricks: preserve everything below about 200 Hz as the original stereo file, then sum-out the vocals, then low-pass filter if needed to get rid of vocal "smear" (in which case an original stereo file of everything over about 6 or 8 Khz will be needed)... if that isn't enough, sometimes I'll go ahead and reverse all or part of where the offending word was.

As mentioned above, sometimes you can paste from another part of the song (grab a beat from the instrumental intro, etc) or echo a phrase right in beat "...but she ain't messin' with no broke / broke..."


If all else fails, sound effects can be used effectively (or for comic relief!). I took Casey Casem's rant about doing a dead dog dedication out of an uptempo record and replaced one word with a slower, lower pitched doorbell and the other word with a faster, higher pitched doorbell. If anything, it sounds funnier now than if I'd left it alone. ;D

The free Audacity should be able to do similar tricks, I suspect.

Good luck with this; I was working at an R&B station when Snoop Dog hit... and we had NO digital editing. The radio edit wasn't clean enough for my boss, so I ended up in the production studio with a 4-track and the instrumental, punching back and forth for a live edit / dub to cart. Aarugh! I don't miss those days. :

Great post, nightmare...I copied to a note file for future reference.