Free Nightcore and Sped-Up Song Maker

Speed, pitch and tempo for each nightcore setting

Nightcore edits play a song about 25–35% faster than the original. At this tool’s default of 125%, a song rises about 3.9 semitones, a 128 BPM (beats per minute) dance track plays at 160 BPM and a 3:30 song lasts 2:48. A semitone is the step between two neighboring keys on a piano.

Each 5% step adds a little less pitch than the one before, from about 0.8 semitones near 110% to 0.6 near 140%.

The original nightcore sound is often compared to a 33⅓ rpm record played at 45 rpm, which is 135% speed. That raises middle C from 261.63 Hz to 353.19 Hz, about 5.2 semitones.

Speeds that raise a song by whole semitones

Most speeds leave the song between two keys, slightly out of tune with anything at standard pitch. When the edit has to sit with another track, in a mashup or a DJ set, use a speed from this table, which lands within 7 cents of a whole semitone. A cent is a hundredth of a semitone.

The key finder tells you the key you start from. Count up the semitones to get the key of the edit.

Choosing a speed from the song’s tempo

The DJs who named the style sped their trance sources up by 25–30%, which commonly put them at 160–180 BPM. That range makes a useful target. Measure the original with the BPM finder and divide the target by it. A 128 BPM track reaches 160 BPM at 125%.

Tempo is only half of the choice. Listen to the vocal as you raise the speed and stop where the voice turns from bright to cartoonish.

Why sped-up voices sound higher and thinner

Speeding up a recording multiplies every frequency in it by the same amount. At 125%, the A at 440 Hz becomes 550 Hz, the 50 Hz thump of a kick drum moves to 62.5 Hz and the shimmer of the cymbals climbs toward the top of hearing.

The low end gets lighter because the bass leaves the range that gives a track its weight. The top gets brighter because sibilance and cymbals climb higher, and a mix that was already bright can turn sharp. Both shifts are part of why nightcore sounds energetic, and both are what to listen for when an edit starts to tire the ear.

Voices change most because of formants, the resonances of the throat and mouth that make a voice recognizable. They move up with everything else, so the singer sounds smaller and younger, the effect often called chipmunk vocals. Pitch-shifting software can hold formants in place, while a plain speed change moves them with the notes.

In nightcore the raised voice is part of the style, so this tool changes tempo, pitch and formants together. For a faster song in its original key, change the tempo alone with a time-stretch effect. The Audacity guide to speed, tempo and pitch walks through both kinds of change.

From Norwegian trance edits to sped-up TikTok songs

The name comes from Nightcore, a duo of Norwegian DJs, Thomas S. Nilsen (DJ TNT) and Steffen Ojala Søderholm (DJ SOS), who first used it in 2001 for a school project. They released sped-up, pitched-up versions of trance and Eurodance songs, starting with the album Energized in 2002.

Their tracks reached YouTube from 2008, and fans began making nightcore edits of their own. A nightcore version of “Rockefeller Street”, Getter Jaani’s song for Estonia at Eurovision 2011, became a meme, and anime artwork became the usual image on nightcore videos.

In the early 2020s the sound came back through TikTok, often under the plainer name sped-up. In 2022 a TikTok trend set a dance from the Netflix series Wednesday to a nightcore version of Lady Gaga’s “Bloody Mary”, and major labels now release official sped-up versions next to the originals.

Nightcore, sped-up, daycore and slowed and reverb

For the slow side, use the slowed and reverb maker, which goes down to 70% speed and adds reverb.

Picking a song that works as nightcore

The style was built on trance and Eurodance, and songs that share their traits tend to work well. A steady four-on-the-floor beat stays danceable at a higher tempo, a big melodic chorus stays catchy when it moves up a few semitones, and a clear lead vocal survives the change in tone.

• Mid-tempo pop and dance songs take the full 125–135% lift and land in the classic tempo range.
• Songs with a lower lead voice have more room to rise before the singer sounds cartoonish.
• Ballads gain energy, though the slow chords and long notes can make the result feel rushed. Try 115–120% first.
• Dense, distorted mixes such as metal get harsher as the guitars and cymbals climb. A small lift of 110–115% keeps them listenable.

Start from the best copy of the song you have. A lossless file such as WAV or FLAC, or a high-bitrate MP3, keeps the top end clean once speeding up pushes it higher.

Fixing a harsh or thin nightcore edit

• The vocals sound shrill. Drop the speed by 5%. Each step down takes some of the edge off the voice and the cymbals.
• The words blur together. Fast rap and dense lyrics stop being followable sooner than a sung chorus. Stay at 110–120% for them.
• The low end feels thin. The bass and kick move up with everything else, away from the frequencies that give a track its weight. Run the download through the bass booster with a light boost.
• It clashes with another track. Use a speed from the whole-semitone table so both share a key.
• The edit is too short for your video. At 125% a song loses a fifth of its length. Use a lower speed or loop a section in your video editor.

Using the sped-up file

The download is a WAV file of the whole song at the new speed. WAV is uncompressed, so video editors, DJ software and DAWs (digital audio workstations) open it without conversion, and it keeps the quality of your source for any further editing.

For a DJ set, write the new tempo and key next to the file name. A sped-up edit no longer matches the BPM and key your library shows for the original.

For a short video or a post, cut the chorus out of the WAV with the MP3 cutter, which takes WAV files too and can fade the clip in and out. To edit the song in a DAW, set the project tempo to the new BPM so the grid lines up with the beat.

Nightcore videos usually show anime artwork. The artwork has its own rights, separate from the music, so use art you made, commissioned or have permission to use.