Daycore: the song,
slowed and lowered.

Daycore is nightcore, reversed

Nightcore raises a song — faster and higher together. Daycore is the same move in the other direction: 75% to 85% speed with the pitch falling along with it, so the voice gets deeper and the song gets heavier. Some people call it nightcore reverse or anti-nightcore; it is the same thing.

The name is community shorthand rather than a formal genre label, which is why the same sound answers to three names — daycore, nightcore reverse, anti-nightcore. What matters is the move, not the word, and the move is two linked sliders.

Daycore rewards songs you already know well — the pleasure is hearing a familiar voice arrive lower and calmer than memory expects, like the album version of a song you have only heard live. New-to-you songs have nothing to be compared against, so the effect lands softer.

The difference from slowed + reverb is the room: slowed + reverb adds space, daycore usually stays dry. That makes daycore feel close rather than distant — the singer sounds like they are in the room with you, just lower and slower. The tool above opens at 80% with the reverb off; one press of the Reverb module moves you into slowed + reverb territory if the song asks for it.

Finding a song’s daycore number

High, bright vocals survive the drop best — which is why so much daycore is made from pop and dance tracks with female leads. A voice that starts low can turn to mush below 80%. Work by ear: drag the tempo down while the chorus plays, and stop where the voice sounds intentional rather than damaged. The pitch readout will sit between −3 and −5 semitones for most keepers.

Start to finish

1. Drop the song — it plays at 80%, dry, immediately.
2. Find the voice’s floor: drag down until the vocal is deep but still intentional, back up one step.
3. Decide on the room. Dry is classic daycore; a small room at low mix moves it toward slowed + reverb, which is allowed.
4. Export as MP3 or WAV — the whole song, rendered in seconds, with the settings named in the filename so next week still makes sense.

What people use daycore for

Sleep and study versions of songs that are too energetic at full speed. Calm edits — the slowed cousin of the sped up TikTok sound, for videos that want warmth instead of urgency. And simple listening: some songs reveal a second, sadder song hiding inside them at 80%, and finding those is its own hobby. The export makes any of these a file; the app makes them a saved setting on the song itself.

From daycore to a posted edit

If the destination is a video: export the whole song as MP3, bring it into your editor, and cut the section under your clip — the spoken note on free exports sits after the music, so it never enters a normal cut. Daycore under a video reads best when the visuals slow down with it: longer shots, slower motion, less cutting. An edit cut at sped-up pace over a daycore track fights its own soundtrack. If the destination is just your own listening, the app is the better home — the daycore setting saves onto the song itself and plays that way in your library, offline, without a second file existing at all.

A note on loudness

A daycore version reads quieter than its original even at the same volume — slower music simply delivers less energy per second, and the deepened voice sits lower in the ear’s sensitive range. That quietness is part of the sound’s calm, so leave it alone: exports go out at the tool’s level, and any platform you post to will do its own loudness leveling anyway.

The link, explained once

The two sliders move together because they are one physical idea: play the record slower and everything comes down with it. Twelve semitones per halving of speed; at 80% that works out to about −3.9. Tools that let you slow the tempo while holding the pitch are doing a different job — useful for practice, but it is not daycore, and the smearing it adds is exactly what this sound avoids.

The app keeps every song at its own speed

Y2K Player is a music player for iPhone and iPad. Each song remembers its own tempo and pitch — so your daycore versions live in your library as saved settings, playable any time, offline.

It adds what the browser does not have: an equalizer to warm the lowered voice, more effects, playlists, themes, and video export over a visualizer. Free to use, no account.