Make nightcore
for YouTube

135% — where nightcore starts

Nightcore is a harder lift than a sped up edit. Where short-form audio stops around 125–130%, nightcore starts at about 135% — a rise of 5.2 semitones — and the genre's range runs up toward 150%. The voice is meant to transform: high, quick, bright, closer to an anime opening than to the original singer.

The mechanism is the same linked shift this whole tool is built on: pitch follows tempo, 12 semitones per doubling, the way a record spun faster rises. Nightcore has always been made exactly this way — the genre started as sped-up recordings — so the tool above is not an approximation of the technique. It is the technique.

Which setting fits depends on the source. A song with a low, warm vocal has room to climb — 140% can suit it. A song that is already high and bright may peak at 130–135% before the vocal turns glassy. Set the loop on the chorus and walk the slider up until it stops improving; that point is your setting. It is normal for that point to land on an odd number like 137% — trust the ear over the round figure, because the upload will be listened to, not read.

Choosing a song that survives the lift

Half the craft of nightcore is picking the source. Songs with low, warm vocals gain the most, because a 5-semitone rise lands them in a bright register instead of past it. Mid-tempo tracks work better than fast ones — a song at 170 BPM has nowhere to go, while a 110 BPM ballad turns into something that moves. The genre's original material was dance and trance for a reason: strong melodies, steady grids, vocals with room to climb. A song that is already high, already fast, or built on whisper-quiet delivery will fight you at 135%; a song with headroom in both pitch and pace will sound like it was waiting for it.

A craft note: keep it clean at speed

A big lift exposes everything in the top of the mix — cymbals, sibilance, harshness that was invisible at 100%. If the lifted track bites, a low mix of the Air or Plate room can soften the top without washing the track out. And export with headroom: YouTube adjusts playback loudness anyway, so a clean file at a moderate level beats a loud one that crackles.

Content ID, honestly

Before you upload: nightcore made from someone else's song is still someone else's song, and YouTube's systems are built to notice.

Content ID matches uploads against reference recordings, and it routinely matches sped-up versions — a pitch-and-tempo shift does not hide a track from it. When a match happens, the usual outcome is a claim, not a strike: the video often stays up, and any ad revenue can go to the rightsholder instead of you. Some rightsholders instead block matched videos in some or all regions. Which of these happens is the rightsholder's policy, not yours, and it can change after upload.

None of this is a reason to panic, and the nightcore community has lived with it for years — a claimed video that stays up is the everyday case. But it is a reason to be clear-eyed: do not build income plans on uploads of music you do not hold rights to, do not treat a quiet first week as permanent, and know that disputing a claim on a song you do not own generally goes nowhere. If you want uploads that are fully yours, nightcore made from your own recordings, commissioned tracks, or music licensed for the purpose is the clean path. This tool works the same either way — it changes the sound, never the rights.

One community habit worth keeping: credit the original clearly. The long-standing nightcore title format names the song and the original artist, and the description links to the original where possible. Credit does not remove a Content ID claim — rights systems do not read descriptions — but it is honest toward the artist, useful to listeners who want the source, and it is how the community has always distinguished an edit from a passing-off. If your version is worth uploading, the original is worth naming.

From song to upload

The audio is the part this page owns. Here is the whole of it.

1. Drop your song on the tool above. It loads inside the page; nothing is sent to any server.
2. Set the tempo to 135%. The pitch rises 5.2 semitones with it — that is the nightcore sound arriving.
3. Loop the chorus and test 130–145% on your specific song. Stop where the vocal is at its brightest without turning glassy.
4. If the top end bites, add Air or Plate at a low mix. Keep the effect behind the vocal.
5. Export as MP3 or WAV — free, whole song. A short spoken note plays after the song ends and crops off with one trim.
6. Pair the audio with a still image or simple visual in any video editor, or let the app export 1080p video over a visualizer for you, and upload.

You love nightcore? There is a player for that.

Making an upload is one job; listening is the other. Y2K Player is a music player for iPhone and iPad where nightcore is a saved setting, not a separate file.

The app saves each song's settings, so your library can hold every track at its own speed — the nightcore versions just play that way. Playlists, offline, no account. And for uploads, it exports 1080p video over visualizers, which is the classic nightcore-video format solved in one step. Free to use. Pro is one payment — forever.