How to mask / remove / distort a single word in a track?

[quantai]

I am working on "remixing" a dance track into gymnastics floor music. Almost everything is great except for one word, "base". Which is great in the track but not allowed in gymnastics floor music. I have tried using distortion in arrangement view to make it so you can't understand it. However, that has been tough to apply for a split second only.

I have also tried splitting and removing that part of the track. Kind of worked but there is still a little popping as it plays through that spot.

I would appreciate any suggestions for removing or otherwise masking this one word.

[TLW]

Assuming you have the vocal on its own track, not just a stereo mix of the whole track, automating the track or clip volume to reduce the volume of the offending word to silence should work. Automating a utility plugin’s gain on the vocal track to do the same thing should also work.

Though making that kind of edit sound perfectly smooth and natural sounding might be very difficult if the track was recorded with reverb applied.

[Angstrom]

if there's clicking or popping make judicious use of the crossfade tool.
I do a lot of re-edits for stage performers, and often of very weird tracks with dynamic and tonal shifts to traverse, usually a little eq, stealing parts from the intro, outro or elsewhere in the song, a bit of crossfading and it all works.

clicking and popping is a non-zero sample crossing. Causes a voltage jump. Crossfades are the solution.

in recent versions of L10 you'll need to turn off Options->snap automation to grid, to get the fade to be really short

[Nokatus]

Sorry for the (sort of) off topic, but out of curiosity, why is "base" a banned word in this context?

[quantai]

Unfortunately its all in one track.

Assuming you have the vocal on its own track, not just a stereo mix of the whole track, automating the track or clip volume to reduce the volume of the offending word to silence should work. Automating a utility plugin’s gain on the vocal track to do the same thing should also work.

Though making that kind of edit sound perfectly smooth and natural sounding might be very difficult if the track was recorded with reverb applied.

[quantai]

Sorry for the (sort of) off topic, but out of curiosity, why is "base" a banned word in this context?

There are no words allowed in gymnastics floor music. It is not about "base" specifically.

[Nokatus]

There are no words allowed in gymnastics floor music. It is not about "base" specifically.

Ahh, I see! Yeah, that makes sense . I mistook it for a word specific thing when you said "Almost everything is great except for one word, 'base'", heh.

More on topic, I think your best bet (at least for a relatively quick fix) is indeed to look for a part in the track that is most similar to the moment where the word appears, and then paste it over the unsuitable part. As suggested, Live's built-in crossfade editing should get rid of all clicks and pops resulting from too abrupt changes in the waveform.

If there really isn't any part that can double for that timeslice, a "more creative solution" like doubling a longer bit (like the previous bar/phrase before the word, starting from a point that makes sense musically, and making it sound like a slightly "stutterish" part of the rhythmic phrasing of the track, or even going for a longer rearrangement feel without changing the overall length) might work.