Guide

What Is Daycore?

Daycore explained: slowed and pitched down with little or no reverb, the opposite of nightcore. How it differs from slowed and reverb, and how to make one.

Daycore is a remix style in which a song is slowed down, usually to between 0.75x and 0.90x of its original tempo, so that its pitch drops by a few semitones, while little or no reverb is added. It is the direct opposite of nightcore, which speeds songs up and raises their pitch, and it is sometimes called anti-nightcore for that reason. Daycore keeps the heavier, lower, calmer feel of a slowed track without the distant, washed-out room sound of slowed + reverb.

That is the definition. This guide covers where the term sits in relation to nightcore, slowed and reverb and chopped and screwed, what the slowed-but-dry sound actually does to a recording, which songs suit it, and how to make one with the free daycore maker in a browser.

Where the name comes from

Daycore is a reaction to nightcore. Nightcore edits, sped up and pitched up over anime artwork, had been a YouTube fixture since the mid 2000s. At some point uploaders started posting the inverse, the same kind of song slowed and pitched down, and reached for the obvious name. If night is fast and bright, day is slow and warm. The term anti-nightcore circulated alongside it and means the same thing.

The style never developed the visual identity that nightcore has. There is no daycore artwork convention. What it did develop was a clear sonic rule that separates it from slowed + reverb: stay dry. When the late 2010s slowed + reverb wave arrived on YouTube, daycore became the word for the subset of slowed edits that skipped the reverb or kept it very low.

The dates here are approximate. Daycore emerged gradually as a label rather than at a single moment, and different communities adopted it at different times.

Daycore versus the neighbouring styles

The row that matters most is reverb. Daycore and slowed + reverb use nearly identical speeds. What makes a daycore edit daycore is that you can still hear the recording clearly. The vocal stays close, the drums keep their edges, and the only transformation is downward.

Chopped and screwed is daycore's ancestor in sound, slowed and pitched down with no reverb, but it is a DJ technique built around manually chopping between two copies of a record to stutter and repeat phrases. A speed-only tool gives you the screwed part and not the chopped part. The chopped and screwed maker page is honest about that line.

What slowing without reverb does

Slowing a recording to 0.85x stretches it by about 18 percent and lowers it by about three semitones. Without reverb to soften things, every change is audible.

Vocals get heavier and more intimate. A pitched-down voice sits lower in the chest and sounds larger. Without a reverb tail, it also stays close to the listener. The effect is like the singer leaning in rather than stepping back.

Drums get longer and rounder. Kicks spread out and hi-hats lose their top. Because there is no reverb filling the space between hits, you hear the extra room in the groove. Daycore edits often feel more spacious than slowed + reverb edits despite having no added space, because the gaps stay empty.

Flaws show. Reverb is forgiving; it blurs compression artifacts and stretch artifacts. Daycore is not. A low bitrate source slowed to 0.80x exposes every swirl. Start from a clean file, ideally lossless or 320 kbps, and stay above 0.78x unless the source is excellent.

Bass dominates. Shifting everything down pushes the kick and bass into the sub region. Many daycore edits need a small bass cut rather than a boost, or a slightly brighter tone setting to keep balance. This is the opposite of what slowed + reverb usually wants.

Settings that define daycore

Width stays at or near 1.0. Stereo widening is a slowed + reverb habit that goes with the big room sound; daycore keeps the original image. The best speed for slowed and reverb post covers how speed choices interact with tempo and vocal range, and the reasoning applies to daycore directly.

How to make a daycore edit

1. Open the daycore maker and drop in a file. It runs in your browser; nothing is uploaded and no account is needed.
2. Start from the Dry preset so there is no reverb, then set speed to 0.82x. Or start from Haze Chamber and pull Reverb to zero, Tone back toward zero and Width to 1.0.
3. Leave Preserve pitch off. The lower key is the point. If you want slower in the original key, that is a practice tool rather than daycore.
4. Listen to the chorus. If the vocal sounds dull, raise Tone by 1 or 2 dB. If the low end booms, lower Bass rather than adding reverb to cover it.
5. If you want a hint of space, keep Reverb under 20 percent with a short Space of around 2 seconds. Past that you are making slowed + reverb.
6. Export. The MP3 is 96 kbps, 32 kHz, made in your browser. That suits YouTube, TikTok and Shorts since they re-encode. For a master, use a WAV source and a DAW.

For an album, add every track, Select All Tracks, set once and Download All for a ZIP.

Which songs suit daycore

Daycore rewards good recordings and strong vocals. Because nothing is hidden, a well mixed pop or R&B track with a confident singer becomes a richer, slower version of itself. Acoustic music works well, since the dry setting preserves the sense of a real performance. Rap at 0.80x is where the style meets its chopped and screwed roots and often sounds right.

Avoid dense, bright, heavily layered mixes if you want clarity. They slow into a thick low-mid mass. Avoid very low male vocals below about 0.80x, which turn to gravel. And avoid poor quality sources altogether; this is the one slowed style that will not cover for them.

Daycore and slowed + reverb in practice

Many creators use both and choose per song. A track with an emotional, exposed vocal often works better as daycore, where every word stays legible. A track with a busy arrangement or a thin recording often works better as slowed + reverb, where the room smooths the edges. If you are building a channel, listening to each song at 0.82x with reverb at zero and then at 40 percent takes a minute and tells you which to post. The slowed vs nightcore vs daycore page has a decision guide.

Copyright

A daycore edit of a song you do not own is a derivative work. Slowing does not remove the copyright and platform matching recognises slowed versions. Expect a claim with revenue to the rights holder, and occasionally a block. Use original or licensed music to monetise.

Open the free editor: upload MP3, WAV, AAC, OGG or FLAC, adjust speed, reverb, bass, tone, width and space, then export MP3 or a ZIP of many tracks. Everything runs in your browser.