Recording KATSEYE "My Way" in Seoul: A DIAMOND K-Pop Experience

Yes — you can record KATSEYE's "My Way" in a professional Gangnam studio during your trip to Seoul, and fly home with a tuned, mixed, and mastered master of your own voice. That is exactly what a returning visitor from Macau did on her latest family trip, booking the DIAMOND experience at KING STUDIO, about seven minutes on foot from Seolleung Station. If you're one of the EYEKONS building a Korea travel itinerary around your favorite group, this is what the day actually looks like — not a brochure version, but one real session from hello to final playback. For how DIAMOND compares with the other three services, the complete KING STUDIO recording guide breaks down every tier. 🎤✨

• Why "My Way" — The Song She Always Sings
• Inside the DIAMOND Session: Six Steps, Step by Step
• KATSEYE in Seoul: KING STUDIO's Picks
• In Her Words
• KING STUDIO Services FAQ

Why "My Way" — The Song She Always Sings

Hayley didn't agonize over her song choice. When the team asked why "My Way," her answer was simple: it's the song she sings most often — the one already living in her voice long before she stepped into the booth. That kind of pick tends to produce the best DIAMOND sessions. A song you know by muscle memory frees you to work on how you sing rather than what comes next, and it gives a vocal director real material to shape from the very first take.

The song itself rewards that familiarity. "My Way" is the third single from SIS (Soft Is Strong), the debut EP KATSEYE released on August 16, 2024 through HYBE and Geffen — the record that introduced the six-member global group formed through The Debut: Dream Academy, an audition that drew roughly 120,000 applicants worldwide before settling on members from the US, Switzerland, the Philippines, and South Korea. The EP's title reflects one of the group's stated core beliefs — soft is strong — and "My Way" has since grown into one of its most-streamed tracks, with well over a hundred million plays on Spotify alone. Lyrically, it is a declaration of independence: make a million mistakes, own every one of them, as long as you did it your way. For a fan who sings it constantly, that message isn't abstract — it's a daily refrain.

Here's the twist that made this session unusual: the original "My Way" is an English-language track with no official Korean version — and Hayley recorded her rendition in Korean. That one decision defined the session's central challenge before a single note was sung. Korean lyrics laid over a melody written for English phrasing carry different syllable counts and denser consonants than the original ever had to, and the fast passages became the day's recurring battle. It's also where KING STUDIO's team earned their keep: manager Jinny stayed on Korean pronunciation throughout, correcting line by line, and Hayley's own account afterward was disarmingly honest — the moments her tongue got twisted were exactly the moments the team stepped in.

There's a neat symmetry in that. The chorus she was singing is literally about making mistakes and pushing through them anyway, and that is precisely how the recording of it went: mistakes weren't failures to hide in this booth, they were the raw material the directing was built to work with. Worth noting, too — this was Hayley's third visit to KING STUDIO. A first visit can be curiosity; a third visit, folded into a family trip to Seoul, is a habit. And this time she arrived carrying the one song she trusts most. 🎯

Inside the DIAMOND Session: Six Steps, Step by Step

Step 1 — A Familiar Hello

Hayley greeted producer Aiden — the lead producer whose credits span more than 400 K-pop albums since 2001, and he made the day's introductions: vocal director Ji Seon, who would be directing Hayley for the first time, and manager Jinny. A third visit changes the shape of this opening step. There's no orientation nervousness to burn off and no explaining how the studio works; the catching-up flows straight into working, and the team already knows who they're working with.

Step 2 — Vocal Analysis & Warm-Up

Ji Seon opened with vocal training built around pitch and tempo — not generic warm-up scales, but targeted exercises chosen to map a voice she had never directed before. Working quickly mattered: in a single-day session, every minute spent diagnosing is a minute borrowed from recording, and Ji Seon compressed the read into that first stretch.

By the end of it she had Hayley's vocal characteristics in hand — where her pitch sits comfortably, how she handles rhythm, and which tendencies would matter once the red light came on.

Step 3 — Finding Her Key

The first critical checkpoint of this session — the team's own words for it — was the key. "My Way" as released sits where KATSEYE's six voices sit, which is not necessarily where Hayley's does, and a key that's even slightly off means every later take fights the song instead of riding it. So before any recording, a dedicated rehearsal was run for exactly one purpose: finding the key in which Hayley sings this song best, testing until the pitch center of the track matched the pitch center of her voice.

There's a small irony the team knows well: even a song you sing every day at home has usually been sung in whatever key the recording plays in, not the key your voice actually owns — and hearing "your" song land in your key for the first time, over a studio monitoring chain, is often the first moment visitors realize what they booked. Only once that lock was found did the session move forward.

Step 4 — Building the Monitoring Environment

Next came a full run-through of the song with a different goal: building what Hayley would hear in her headphones. The balance between the instrumental, her own voice, and the reverb around it was adjusted across the rehearsal until the monitoring mix felt right to her specifically — KING STUDIO treats the singer's ideal monitoring environment as its own dedicated stage of the session, not an engineering afterthought. The reasoning is simple and audible in the takes: a singer who hears herself clearly performs differently from one straining against a bad mix, and this rehearsal is where that difference gets locked in before it can cost a take.

Step 5 — Ninety Minutes of Directing

Then the core of the day: roughly an hour and a half of continuous vocal directing. Ji Seon had analyzed the song part by part before the session, and she directed it the same way — returning again and again to the beat, to the pitch, and to the meaning of each lyric, feeding Hayley a stream of constant, specific asks rather than vague encouragement. Because Hayley was singing in Korean, Jinny ran a parallel track of her own the entire time: continuous pronunciation correction, line after line, so the language landed as cleanly as the notes.

This ninety-minute stretch is the one Hayley described afterward when she talked about being guided through her mistakes — when a phrase tangled her tongue, the direction didn't stop, it adapted, and they worked the line until it sat. That rhythm — sing, adjust, sing again, with two professionals listening for different things — is what separates a directed studio recording from singing along at home, and it is the core of what DIAMOND buys you.

Step 6 — The Sweet Spot & the Take-Home Master

With the ninety minutes of recording complete, Hayley moved to final monitoring — conducted from what the KING STUDIO team calls the "Sweet Spot," the listening position where the studio's monitoring environment is at its best. Hearing the full performance from the room's ideal seat is the session's quiet payoff moment, the first time the day's work plays back as one piece. From there the DIAMOND deliverable takes over: her takes go through pitch and timing correction, then mixing and mastering, into a finished master delivered in about two weeks — the file that turns a two-hour session into something she keeps for good. And before leaving, Hayley sat down with the vocal director and manager for one last recording of a different kind — a video review of her session, made for the future visitors who'll stand in that booth after her. Asked on camera whether she'd come back and do it again, her answer was immediate, with one caveat any student would recognize: school might get in the way. 💎

KATSEYE in Seoul: KING STUDIO's Picks

These are KING STUDIO's recommendations for EYEKONS visiting Seoul — not the route Hayley took. Honest note: KATSEYE is based in Los Angeles, so their verified Seoul footprint is small. Two picks pass our checks:

• HYBE Headquarters (Yongsan) — KATSEYE is a HYBE UMG group, and the label's Yongsan building is the closest thing to home ground in Seoul. Exterior photo stop; free; best in morning light. Roughly 30 minutes from KING STUDIO by subway.
  📍Address (Google) : 42, Hangang-daero, Yongsan-gu, Seoul
  📍Address (Naver) : 서울 용산구 한강대로 42
  
• Korean music show tapings (Sangam area) — KATSEYE promotes in Korea and has appeared on domestic music shows, including M Countdown. When a Korean promotion window lines up with your trip, taping entry is typically arranged through official fan-participation notices — check Weverse before you fly. Roughly 50 minutes from KING STUDIO.
  📍Address (Google) : 66, Sangamsan-ro, Mapo-gu, Seoul, Republic of Korea
  📍Address (Naver) : 서울특별시 마포구 상암산로 66

In Her Words

"You helped me by guiding me through the mistakes I had … when my tongue was twisted, you would help me." — Hayley, Macau (verbatim, lightly condensed from her video review)

Asked whether she'd do it again: "If I could, I would." — school schedules permitting. 👑

KING STUDIO Services FAQ

Plan Your Own Session

If "My Way" — or any song you already carry with you — belongs in your Seoul Trip, a DIAMOND session turns it into something you keep. Book your DIAMOND experience via the KING STUDIO service page, and start with the complete KING STUDIO recording guide if you're choosing between tiers. And tell us: which KATSEYE spot is on YOUR Seoul bucket list? EYEKONS from Macau and beyond — the booth is waiting. ✨

➡️ Book your DIAMOND experience now

🎙️ Book your own K-Pop session → Book your DIAMOND experience now
🌐 Visit us: https://kingstudio.co.kr/en
💎 Read more about DIAMOND : kingstudio.co.kr/blog/diamond

📍Address (Google) : B1 52, Samseong-ro 75-gil, Gangnam-gu, Seoul
📍Address (Naver) : 서울시 강남구 삼성로 75길 52 B1

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