Slowed and reverb
settings

The answer: 85% speed, mix near 30%

The slowed + reverb sound is typically 80-90% speed with a reverb mix near 30%; 85% with a small room is the standard starting point.

Two controls make the whole style. The tempo drops the song and, because the pitch is linked — 12 semitones per doubling of speed — the pitch drops with it: 90% is −1.8 semitones, 85% is −2.8, 80% is −3.9. The voice gets deeper and heavier, and the spaces between drum hits grow. The reverb then fills those spaces, so the slower song sounds intentional and atmospheric instead of simply dragged.

The mix number is the balance between the dry song and the reverb. Near 30%, the effect is unmistakably present but the vocal stays in front. That balance is what separates the style from a song that merely has some reverb on it, and from a wash where the words disappear. Both numbers are starting points, not rules: the ranges exist because different songs carry the treatment differently, and the sections below explain which direction to move for the song in front of you.

The six rooms, and where to start each one

The player on this page has six reverb spaces. They differ in size and tail length, so each has its own sensible starting mix.

The pattern in the table: the bigger the space, the higher the mix it can carry, because long tails at low mix just sound like a distant blur. Small spaces do the opposite — Air at 45% stops sounding like a space and starts sounding like a fault. Start from the table value, then move the mix in small steps while a chorus loops.

Why these numbers, and when to leave them

85% and 30% are a starting point that works on most songs. The song tells you which direction to move.

On the tempo: 90% is the subtle version — the song is heavier but a casual listener may not name why. 85% is the standard, deep enough that the change is the point. 80% is the heavy end, where voices get dark and dramatic; below about 78%, most vocals start to sound unnatural and the style drifts toward something else. If the original song is already slow, start at 90% — it has less room to give.

On the mix: move it down when the words matter most, and up when the atmosphere matters most. Dense productions with constant drums need less reverb because there is little silence to fill; sparse ballads can take more. If a chorus turns muddy, the fix is almost always a lower mix or a smaller room, not a slower tempo.

Let the vocal density decide the room

A useful shortcut when the table feels like too many options: count how much silence the vocal leaves. A rap verse or a fast, wordy pop vocal leaves almost none, so every bit of reverb tail lands on top of the next word — use Air or Room and stay near the bottom of the mix range. A ballad with long held notes and space between phrases gives the tail somewhere to live — Chamber, Hall and Plate all work, and the mix can climb. Instrumental passages are the free zone: this is where Cathedral earns its place, and where you can push the mix without losing anything, because there are no words to lose.

Common mistakes

The most common one is doing everything at once: slowing the song, opening a big room and raising the mix in the same pass, then being unable to tell which move caused the mud. Change one control at a time. The second is judging on the intro — intros are sparse, and settings that sound beautiful there often collapse when the full chorus arrives; make the chorus your test section. The third is using tempo to add drama that the mix should provide: if 85% with the right room still feels flat, the song may simply not want the treatment, and dropping to 75% will not rescue it. The style works with the song's existing emotion; it does not install one.

A note on loudness

Reverb adds level — the tails stack on top of the dry song — and slowing shifts energy toward the low end, which eats headroom. Watch the waveform after you set the mix, and lower the volume slightly before export if the peaks sit high, so the file stays clean.

Get the sound in five steps

The player at the top of this page starts at 85% with a small room at 30% mix — the standard settings from the answer above.

1. Press play on the demo track to hear the starting point.
2. Drop in a song from your device and play the chorus.
3. Judge the tempo first with the mix where it is: too subtle, go toward 80%; too heavy, toward 90%.
4. Then judge the space: try Hall or Chamber for a bigger sound, Plate if the vocal should stay polished, and adjust the mix with the table above as a guide.
5. Loop the chorus, make the final small adjustments, and export as MP3 or WAV — the whole song, free, with a short spoken note after the song ends that you can crop away.

You love slowed and reverb? There is a player for that.

Y2K Player is a music player for iPhone and iPad where 85% and a room are a setting each song keeps, not a file you re-export.

The app saves settings per song, so your slowed versions play slowed every time while the rest of the library stays normal. It has playlists, works offline, needs no account, and exports video at 1080p over visualizers when a version is ready to post — the format this style lives in.

Free to use. Pro is one payment — forever.