If you need to remove swear words from songs—for example, to create a clean version for radio play, you can use stem separation to isolate the vocal and lower the volume where the swear words occur. This guide will walk you through splitting the track into instrumental and acapella, editing the acapella, and exporting the final mix.
You can also use the reverse effect as another way to censor explicit words. Combined with volume automation on stems, this gives you multiple ways to create clean edits quickly and effectively.
In the near future, we’ll introduce an AI transcription extension that can automatically detect and mute explicit lyrics. Until then, stem separation and the reverse effect are the best methods to prepare radio-ready, clean versions of your tracks.
Remove (swear) words with Stems Separation and Volume Automation
If you want to remove swear words from songs, you need to
Split the track into a Acapella and Instrumental by right-clicking on the track and select the option to "Split into Instrumental and Acapella". This will separate the vocals from the instrumental parts of the track. The acapella will be shown on the sample lane.
Select the acapella sample
Click on the V on your keyboard to add a Volume automation
Add 4 automation points to the Volume automation line.
Bring the Volume of the vocal down by dragging the white volume line down between the second and the third volume automation point where the explicit word is used.
Replace or silence the sections with the bad words.
This video demonstrates how to mute the vocals.
Censor (swear) words with the Reverse Effect
Decide how you want to apply the effect:
To a word or spoken part only > Split the track into acapella and Instrumental by right-clicking on the trac> "Split into Instrumental and Acapella".
To the complete track selection > no extra steps needed
Find the word or part of the track you want to censor and place the cursor there.
Go to the effects tab > FX Pack (available in Pro+Stems and Ultimate)
Scroll the FX list to Special > Reverser
Apply the effect to the track/acapella
Adjust the effect parameters if you want to increase the length or severity of the effect.
