Nightcore just shouldn't exist

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echogecko
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Nightcore just shouldn't exist

Post by echogecko » December 27th, 2015, 3:11 pm

For years I've come across songs on youtube labelled [NIGHTCORE REMIX] or similar. Every single one of these 'remixes' has sounded like nothing more than the original song being played at double speed. Ignoring the obvious fact that this doesn't constitute a new genre, or even a remix for that matter, above all I joined this forum to ask all of you how you can even like the sound of a song that has just been sped up? It looses audio quality and musical integrity. I've honestly wanted to click on just one so-called Nightcore track that didn't sound worse than it's original song because it had been sped up, but they all do. It's tragic. You can literally right click in VLC media player and click '2x speed' whilst playing any song. If Nightcore was supposed to exist, they would have surely called this feature Nightcore mode. Open a JPEG of Hatsune Miku while you listen and you've got 100% authentic Nightcore experience on your hands.

And then I discovered this place. Nightcore Universe. There is actually a universe for Nightcore...

I am inside the heart of darkness. This is the belly of the Nightcore beast. So this must be the place where someone can tell me why Nightcore is even a thing, when it isn't actually even a thing? I feel like I'm about to have my mind completely BLOWN.
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Vitacx97
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Re: Nightcore just shouldn't exist

Post by Vitacx97 » December 27th, 2015, 3:23 pm

Basically, the story goes that the premise behind the term "nightcore" originally formed in the late 1990s/early 2000s as a school project by two European teenagers. They supposedly sped up eurodance and similar genres of songs to re-create the sounds of happy hardcore (that being fast beats and pitched up vocals). The name, if I recall correctly, came later. Whether this is actually true or not who knows, but the entire point of "traditional nightcore" is to replicate the sound of happy hardcore. Nowadays I think the term "nightcore" just means speed up any old song but we don't condone that on this forum (as we stick to the "traditional" meaning).

How anime got involved with this trend nobody knows, it just seemed to fit, so it stuck. I like to think that as a lot of female anime characters have quite high pitched voices, that the girls themselves are singing, but that's just me. Nobody *really* knows why.

I don't see why it *shouldn't* exist, it's fun and a lot of people enjoy it. It's not hurting anyone and you don't have to like it if you don't want to. It's like anything really, it's for those who enjoy it to enjoy and those who don't to not.
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emilemil1
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Re: Nightcore just shouldn't exist

Post by emilemil1 » December 27th, 2015, 4:15 pm

Why things become -things- cannot be explained. I will never understand the why people are interested in stuff like twerking, selfies, pranks, fails, candy crush, etc.,

But they exist, so all you can do is lean back and agree or disagree :)
Every single one of these 'remixes' has sounded like nothing more than the original song being played at double speed.
Usually it's 20-25% faster. And yes, that is what Nightcore is.
Ignoring the obvious fact that this doesn't constitute a new genre, or even a remix for that matter, above all I joined this forum to ask all of you how you can even like the sound of a song that has just been sped up?
It's not a genre and it's not a remix, correct, it's the name of the DJ duo who started the craze. (some would argue that it's a remix, but I don't see it that way either)

As for why we like it...
Well, imagine two versions of one of your favorite songs, one that's normal, and one that's 25% slower.
Presumably the 25% slower version will sound worse to you, right?
Now what if the person who made that song suddenly went and said: "oops, that's actually a typo, in fact the slower version is the original and the "normal" version has been sped up.
Does that mean that you no longer will love the version that's now a speed-up?
Of course you still would. And that's how we can love the speed-up that is Nightcore.

Sometimes I can listen to a regular song and think it's simply too slow for my tastes, and I can look at some really fast hardcore/speedcore and say that I'd prefer it slowed down. You can wish that songs would be slightly different, or you can do something quick and easy to fix it: Nightcore.
It looses audio quality and musical integrity.
Technically audio quality (information per unit of time) gets higher when a compressed audio signal is sped up.
As for musical integrity... you'd have to explain that one to me. I still view it as the same composition, essentially the same song that's being listened to in a different way.
I've honestly wanted to click on just one so-called Nightcore track that didn't sound worse than it's original song because it had been sped up, but they all do.
Understandable. I went through a bunch of songs until I found a Nightcore version I liked, and some are bound to never encounter anything they can appreciate. Usually if you think something sounds good and at what you feel is a proper speed, then it won't sound better sped up. Instead you want to look for songs that you think sound too slow, those are the ones that you would appreciate faster versions of.

I think most old Trance/Eurodance tracks are too slow, but as Nightcore they're awesome :)
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Fernandez
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Re: Nightcore just shouldn't exist

Post by Fernandez » December 27th, 2015, 10:37 pm

People like nightcore because it's a different way of listening to your favorite song, so to speak. To many people, nightcoring a song makes it sound fresh and different, and that's what people like about it.

Truth be told, the concept of speeding up songs has been around ever since people started remixing music, which was way before Nightcore. Nightcore wasn't the ones who started the idea of speeding up music.
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Zurd
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Re: Nightcore just shouldn't exist

Post by Zurd » December 28th, 2015, 11:05 am

I really like happy hardcore, dance, techno but always wished it was a bit faster.

Thus Nightcore was born for people like me.
echogecko
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Re: Nightcore just shouldn't exist

Post by echogecko » December 28th, 2015, 11:39 am

emilemil1 wrote:

Well, imagine two versions of one of your favorite songs, one that's normal, and one that's 25% slower.
Presumably the 25% slower version will sound worse to you, right?
Now what if the person who made that song suddenly went and said: "oops, that's actually a typo, in fact the slower version is the original and the "normal" version has been sped up.
Does that mean that you no longer will love the version that's now a speed-up?
Of course you still would. And that's how we can love the speed-up that is Nightcore.

...

Technically audio quality (information per unit of time) gets higher when a compressed audio signal is sped up.
As for musical integrity... you'd have to explain that one to me. I still view it as the same composition, essentially the same song that's being listened to in a different way.
Haha well as I say, I can 100% tell when a song has been sped up from it's original because of what happens to the sound of it. Audio/music is my field. But that said, if the sped up version was actually well produced and remixed to conceal the audible artifacts that occur with speeding up a track, then sure, maybe I'd prefer the faster version.

I'm not sure how technical you'd like to be - are you an audio engineer by any chance? Audio quality does not get higher once a track is sped up because ultimately you are re-sampling the signal at the same or a lesser sample rate than the original. You get the same amount of information (same amount of samples), but the samples you now have has been messed with and will tend to sound unnatural in many ways. You're affecting the frequencies in the sample causing it to change pitch and give that chipmonk effect (unless you timestretch too). This is most noticeably a bad effect in the drums because they tend to loose all their punch, and that's what makes these tunes I've heard on Youtube sound so obviously sped up. Another thing is reverb; reverb is known as a time domain effect and is applied to elements in a mix. Reverbs have a 'time', and when you speed up a track you are also essentially speeding up all the rate of all reverb tail events. Because reverb is used to simulate acoustic space, what you end up hearing is a very unnatural acoustic space,and that tells your brain something isn't right. There are lots of little points like this you could make about speeding up a track, but the point is that it does introduce some pretty nasty effects to the sound. There's also (although I don't know this for sure) a good chance that quantize noise could occur due to sample rounding, because basically computers can't always round to the exact number you need, and you end up with rounding errors which can be represented in the digital audio signal (which is in fact just a big list of numbers). I've personally never looked into that, but I probably will now...

Musical integrity sort of ties in with these general points too. It'd be hard to explain without an example but I just mean that the the effectiveness of some musical movements will be lessened. Say there's a big build up in a song and then it kicks in to the drop (or the happy hardcore ravey fist bumpy bit) - there's a massive sweep that builds tension, and then you hear a big crash cymbal. In a sped up tune, that sweep that builds up will be less effective as a musical movement because it will be over too soon compared with it's effectiveness at regular speed. The cymbal will no longer be a powerful crash to explode you into the music, but instead will sound like someone threw a spoon at some aluminium foil, much to the detriment of the musical effectiveness again. Not the best examples of real musical integrity but I'm sure you get what I mean.

I suppose what I'm saying is it wouldn't be so bad if there were a better way to produce Nightcore tracks like for e.g layering new drum samples and ducking the old ones to cover up the quality loss. This would also be an effort deserving of the word remix! Until people start doing stuff like that, it will sound quite bad. Hell, I might give it a try just to see what well produced Nightcore might actually sound like, but in the meantime I'm going to need some recommendations for listening. Hit me with the best Nightcore in the world??
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emilemil1
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Re: Nightcore just shouldn't exist

Post by emilemil1 » December 28th, 2015, 4:26 pm

I'm not sure how technical you'd like to be - are you an audio engineer by any chance?
No, but I've studied various things that goes into Nightcore for the 3 years I've been uploading it ^^ I'm quite familiar with most of the terms, at least on a basic level.
Audio quality does not get higher once a track is sped up because ultimately you are re-sampling the signal at the same or a lesser sample rate than the original.
Not necessarily. One method of speeding up is by increasing the sample rate and saving the file in format that supports it, such as FLAC. Also, a lot of the time you've got older songs that are only available in 128-192kbps mp3s, so there's plenty of room to fit sped up versions into 320kbps files without tossing much information. There will naturally be some conversion loss, but no human ear can really detect that difference, especially after YouTube forces the quality down to 160kbps Opus.
You're affecting the frequencies in the sample causing it to change pitch and give that chipmonk effect (unless you timestretch too). This is most noticeably a bad effect in the drums because they tend to loose all their punch, and that's what makes these tunes I've heard on Youtube sound so obviously sped up.
The chipmunk effect is what a lot of people like about Nightcore :) Personally I don't like when a singer sounds totally chipmunk-ish, but a little higher pitched is fine.

Drums (and other acoustic intruments like guitars) do sound unnatural and noticeably sped-up as Nightcore, which is why I dislike almost all Nightcore that feature them. An artificially produced kickdrum sounds much better since you have no real world point of reference, there's no particular way it's supposed to sound. It has less punch, true, but I usually still find it satisfactory enough. I listen to songs for the melody and mood, not phatt bass ^^

The worst thing about the pitch-up is that certain tracks with really high-volume, high-pitched synths can become painfully high-pitched afterwards. Such tracks can never really be Nightcore, which is sad...
Another thing is reverb; reverb is known as a time domain effect and is applied to elements in a mix. Reverbs have a 'time', and when you speed up a track you are also essentially speeding up all the rate of all reverb tail events. Because reverb is used to simulate acoustic space, what you end up hearing is a very unnatural acoustic space,and that tells your brain something isn't right.
This is not something I have ever noticed, so can't really comment on it. My brain is totally fine with it :) I do get where the unnatural sound would come from though (correct me if I'm wrong). A smaller "room" would mean that the sound bounces more rapidly, and returns at a higher volume with each bounce compared to a larger room due to less distance to the "walls". A sped-up track satisfies the first requirement, but not the second, so you get sound that repeats at the speed of a smaller room, but falls off in volume like in a larger room.

I exclusively Nightcore electronic music with almost sounds that are really unnatural to begin with, I suppose that's why these things aren't noticeable. It's either that or because my ears simply don't care about this detail :D There are worse ways to fuck up a track, imho.
Say there's a big build up in a song and then it kicks in to the drop (or the happy hardcore ravey fist bumpy bit) - there's a massive sweep that builds tension, and then you hear a big crash cymbal. In a sped up tune, that sweep that builds up will be less effective as a musical movement because it will be over too soon compared with it's effectiveness at regular speed.
Considering that the length of a sweep is almost always closely tied to the tempo of the song, it usually lasts X amount of bars, this is a natural effect. Higher BPM tracks, regardless of whether they've been sped-up or not, will almost always have more brief sweeps. Shorter and more impactful effects on the other hand, those that are usually the same regardless of the tempo of the track, are definitely negatively affected. If that's a key component of the song you should probably not try speeding it up :)
Hit me with the best Nightcore in the world??
Sound is subjective, there is no "best", silly. Here are a few I like, with the original linked to the right:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1_cjPjKo6A | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUBEwmI5Mvg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbCgUON8xsI | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qotEJFtXUWk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-q0gbc3pL4 | http://www.myfreemp3.website/mp3/DJ+Pla ... Radio+Cut) (can't find a decent video of this last one)
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Re: Nightcore just shouldn't exist

Post by HENTAiCORE » December 28th, 2015, 5:00 pm

you kinda remind me of me when i first came here, similiar points and stuff. but although i also have some major critique towards nightcore, im not 100% consent with your points. you assume that nightcore is done only by shifting tonal frequencies which obviously causes bad quality. but this is just what the worst noobs do, actually people also change the tempo freq related to the tone freq. this will make kickdrums sound punchier since the usually very loud range of 75-150hz moves more towards the 200hz area where most of the punch comes from. the other part of punch are click noises layered on the kick or achieved by compression, which in fact will get shorter and higher and therefore "clickier". also i wouldnt consider the reverb part too important since nightcore is all about trancish dance music and there reverb is usually used after a delay to make the mix stick together and to fill unwanted empty space. yes, usually you create a roomsound but just for the purposes named above and not to simulate a certain room. you can see that with certain parts of hands up, people often use pumping reverbs on lead sounds to create certain, energetic volume envelopes and not a realistic room simulation.
and that samplerate thing: it might be true that the actual quality wont be improved but i dont think it would cause very noticable sound issues. remember that pitch shifting of samples is very usual in dance music production, the same "issues" would be in the original tracks too most likely.
a problem i see is the actual deposition of frequencies. some of the highs will move in hardly noticable or annoying areas and the former powerful offbeat bass will have a lack of bass and unfitting mid parts.
those problems can be a bit fixed by cutting 18-20khz and boosting 50-100hz but some stuff just wont be like it is in a proper mix.
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Zurd
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Re: Nightcore just shouldn't exist

Post by Zurd » December 28th, 2015, 11:22 pm

It's not because a wine bottle cost 5$ that you can tell it's "bad".

It's not because a song has been sped up that you can tell it's "bad".

It's all depends on your personal taste. You can talk about hertz all you want but the fact remains, I prefer Nightcore version. But don't take it the wrong way, I actually like reading about all of this stuff. I just think if we made a blind random test of multiple audio files, nobody will know what is the "right" version and which one is slower or faster than the original. That would be a hearing only test, no software involved to check the frequency. I bet it would foool 99.9% of everyone :)
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toptrancemaster
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Re: Nightcore just shouldn't exist

Post by toptrancemaster » December 29th, 2015, 3:21 pm

Ye Or like
Orginial nightcored
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8V7pBL_xng https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_UoFwHF8K0
I the orginal was to slow for my brain :P
Just listen if you dont listen you dont feel if you dont feel you not
enjoy anyways i dont know why i write it. ^_^

Anyways
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rsslayersr
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Re: Nightcore just shouldn't exist

Post by rsslayersr » January 11th, 2016, 10:10 pm

So welcome to Nightcore Universe, where the frequenting users
-Respect music and artists
-Don't call their speed edits 'remixes'
-Try to use appropriate songs (mostly from a trance derivative)
-Can actually make a decent conversation

We're in Nightcore Universe for more reasons than that it's just a phase we're going through. We have objective reasons for liking the music we listen to.
A whole other discussion could be made about the kind of music you've found in those years prior to posting, OP. You seem keen on the fact accoustic instruments are being mutulated. Does this continue to bother you, now you know that we try to stay away from certain songs?

As for recommendations..
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