Clean Beatz Is Live

Every Tuesday I ship something. This week it is Clean Beatz, a web app that makes a clean version of any song. Upload a track, pick how clean it should be, check the words, and download. It is live now at app.cleanbeatz.com.

The Clean Beatz wordmark with a red asterisk in place of the A, above a lyric where the word damn is struck out

How it works

Upload: Drop in an MP3, M4A, AAC, WAV or FLAC. The app separates the vocals from the music, so a clean version only touches the voice.

Pick a level: Radio removes strong profanity and slurs. Clean removes all profanity, sexual lines and drug references. Family goes further and also removes violence, innuendo and God’s name in vain.

Check the words: This is the part I care most about. Finding the words is automatic, but you read the lyric sheet and decide on each one. A word list catches the obvious ones, and a second pass looks at context for the words that are only explicit sometimes, like “high” or “shot”. Changing a level or a single word is free, and you hear the result right away.

Download: Export as MP3, WAV or M4A. Because only the vocals are muted on the flagged words, the beat keeps going.

Why I built it

Clean versions matter to DJs, fitness instructors, dance studios, cheer teams and anyone playing music around kids. Making one by hand in an audio editor means listening for every word and muting each one yourself. I wanted something that does the finding for you and still lets a person make the final call.

About the iPhone app

There is an iPhone, iPad and Mac app in progress, and an Android app planned after that. For now the web app is where Clean Beatz lives, and it works in any browser.

Pricing

Your first 3 songs are free, with no card needed. After that:

Subscription: $9.99 a month or $49.99 a year, with 25 songs a month included.

Song packs: 10 songs for $5.99, 30 for $11.99, or 100 for $29.99, with lower prices for subscribers.

A song is up to 10 minutes long. A longer upload counts as one more song for each extra 10 minutes. Uploads can be up to 30 minutes and 300 MB, and your files are kept for 7 days.

Try Clean Beatz, read more at cleanbeatz.com, or visit the Clean Beatz app page.