Shepard Tone Raiser FX in Ableton Inspired by BloodPop / Skrillex / Justin Bieber

A fellow Redditor posted a question on how to recreate the raiser in second 48 in Sorry by Justin Bieber. This is a great tune with amazing sound design by BloodPop and Skrillex. In this post I recreate the raiser using Ableton built-in devices and then apply it in on of my mixes - scroll all the way to the bottom to check the final result...

First things first, let's listen second 48.

Ok, let's go!

Step 1 - Basic Settings

• Add a Pitch and a Wavetable on your device chain, modify the Amp to somewhere between 400 ms and 700 ms to ease-in how the note starts.
• I used the Strings 1 under the Instrument Category in the Osc 1 to create this sound, but you can use any wave shape that to your taste.

• Adjust the PB (Pitch Bend) setting to 12 this allows in the modulation matrix.

• Create a 4 bar MIDI Clip and add a note in a high octave between C3 and C5, I added a D#4 in this example, and last, create an automation in the pitch bend envelop

This is how it should sound:

Step 1 - Creating a Simple Pitch Raiser in Ableton

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Step 2 - Shaping the sound to create a Shepard tone

• Group the Pitch and Wavetable and then duplicate the chain twice.
• Rename the duplicates: I named them Hi, Mid, Lo.
  • Increase the pitch one octave higher for Hi
  • Keep the same pitch on Mid
  • Lower the Pitch one octave on Lo

These three combined should add more depth to the sound in three different octaves. It should sound like this:

Step 2 - Shaping the sound to add more warmth

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• Now go to the envelope settings of your clip and create the following automations
  • For the Hi Volume Mixer create an automation so that the sound fades out.
  • For the Lo Volume Mixer create an automation so that the sound fades in.
• This will create a pitch raiser which when looped, it it will create an audio illusion of continuous ascend.
• I'd strongly recommend adding some effects now to add more interest to your pitch raiser effect.

This is how it sounds when you loop it:

Step 2 - Shaping and looping the sound to create a shepard tone

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Step 3 - Blend your new FX in the context of your mix!

• Resample your FX so that you can have freedom on how you add it to your mix. In my case, I decided to supplement the sound with some white noise and an open hat to create more tension as the song transitions into the main section.
• I grouped all these effects and added extra effects: an amp for distortion; a chorus for stereo effect, compression etc. Experiment!

This is the final result!

Step 3 Add your FX in the context of your track. Final Result!

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