Profanity bleep sound?
 

Okay, here's something I haven't been able to find any information on:

What's the standard sound used for bleeping profanity on tv? Does anyone know what frequency it is, or better yet, have it as a clean .wav file? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I'm not sure that there is a "standard" sound. The actual bleep will have to vary in length depending on what needs to be masked. It should be pretty simple to record a tone of a few seconds in length and then apply and trim as needed in your sound track.

well obviously the duration of the sound is going to vary, but there's definitely a standard pitch. that's what i'm trying to figure out.

Yes Id like to know this too...

Your right, there is definitely some kinda "standard." Maybe its not a real standard, but if you try to throw in a beep of your own it sounds off, and is a clear indication of lower quality production.

Sounds like a 1 kHz sine tone to me. Tools > Synthesis > Simple is the appropriate command in Sound Forge.

As an editor I can confirm that it usually is the 1khz tone. Not that using anything else would be wrong, it is just the easiest and quickest thing to get. Almost everything in the video production/post chain can generate the 1khz tone (from the camera to the NLE and most players/recorders). So, this is probably why it is the norm.

But breaking away from the norm, as we all know, could also be very effective. A few months ago I did a job for someone and we decided to bleep out with different animal sounds. Simple, but it actually made us laugh - a lot...

Moo!

Yeah, I use the 1khz tone, because it's there. I tried using a duck quack one time, but usually the bleep had to be too short for the quack to be easily identifiable.

Yeah I needed something similar a while back. I ended up shooting someone pressing a bottom on a phone. It was a real close shot, so you could only see the phone and the hand.

It was a school project on the life of Adam Sandler, so you can imagine the number of profanities he uses.

I recorded the sound of the phone beeping seperatly, then matched it to a 1khz tone. So every time he swore, you'd see this phone with a bottom being pressed. Looked really cool.

Anyway I just did a quick look on Kazaa and Limewire, and couldn't find anything really good.

Just be inventive and find a really good beep noise yourself.

Cell phones, microwaves, I really like to noise made by cars when your door is open and the engine is running.

here is a 1kHz sine i made in soundforge...10 secs...wav..1.62 MB
http://visualstudios.org/1kHzSine.wav

If you're using FCP, you already have 1k tone available. Open it in the viewer and set it for the duration you need.

Bill

most of the NLE's have the 1khz tone, if they have the color bars (and i know premeire and vegas do this for sure) then it is usually included with it.