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How to Censor Rap Music

When you're recording a rap performance at home or performing in a club, you can say anything you want. However, if you want to get your track on the radio you'll need to censor the vocals so that they conform with Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rules. Remove those infamous seven words you're not allowed to say on the air from your rap track by using a digital audio editing program such as Audacity, Cool Edit Pro or Audition. To censor the lyrics, you can overdub the offending words with a sound effect, mute them or replace them with another word.

Things You'll Need

  • Digital audio editor
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Instructions

    • 1

      Censor the offending parts of your rap lyrics by overdubbing them with a sound. This is the classic "bleep" technique, and is the most commonly used censoring method. Open the vocal track in your audio editor and zoom in on the word you want to censor. Click and drag to highlight the word, then click "Generate," then "Tone." Set the tone to "Sine Wave" and click "OK" to replace the word with a bleep. This technique is quick and easy. However, the bleeping sound often interrupts the flow of the track.

    • 2

      Mute the word you want to censor. Open the vocal track in your digital audio editor, then click and drag to select the offending word. Click "Effects," then "Amplify" and drag the "Gain" slider all the way to the left. Click "OK." In Audition and Cool Edit Pro, you can also right-click the selected word and click "Mute." This technique is much less obtrusive than censoring with a bleep; however, it can still interrupt the flow of the rap vocal.

    • 3

      Replace the offending word with a radio-friendly euphemism. Open the digital audio editor, click "Record" and re-record the vocal line, substituting a less-offensive word or words. Click "Edit," then "Copy." Open the track that you want to censor, then click and drag to highlight the line containing the offending word. Click "Edit," then "Paste" to replace the line with the re-recorded version. Listen to the vocal; if the transition sounds unnatural, adjust the volume of the pasted-in section. This technique is difficult to perfect. But it often can provide the best results, as the listener won't even notice that the track is censored if it's done correctly.

Digital Music

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