Hi there and welcome to this video tutorial all about how to make and creatively use Shepard Tones and infinitely rising effects. I'm going to use Native Instruments Form for this as it gives quick and easy access to LFOs and envelopes and it's also got some great creative options for transforming simple samples into huge Shepard Tones. So firstly let's look at the principle of what I'm trying to do. The aim here is to create tones that are constantly rising in pitch, beginning at a low pitch and quiet volume. and then rising in both pitch and volume over an octave, then whilst still rising in pitch the volume should slowly decrease to zero.
Trigger several of these sounds in different octaves and in sequence and you've got yourself a rudimentary shepherd tone that sounds like it's constantly rising as the highest note fades away to be replaced by low notes. So once we've cracked the basic shepherd tone then we can start building on that with some of Form's more impressive sample shaping, layering and effects functions. Let's start with the initial patch in form and load in a simple sine wave sample from the supplied sample collection.
There are loads of other samples available but this is a great one to start with as we can hear exactly what's going on. I also need to set the playback to looping and for a nice smooth loop I'll set the motion preset to this one. We can have more fun with those later.
Now let's automate the pitch so that it rises over the span of 16 bars. Into the sound window first and the form oscillator section. Currently the pitch is assigned to the pitch bend wheel so let's change that to LFO 1 and increase the intensity all the way to max.
The LFO shape needs some changes so in the modulation panel I'll change it to a triangle shape for a linear pitch rise and skew the shape so that the pitch constantly rises before resetting. The phase dial also needs a small adjustment so that each time I press a key, the pitch restarts from the lowest point. I'll also set the speed of the LFO to 16 bars for a nice slow pitch rise.
Now to fade the sound in and out as it rises, there's a number of ways to do this. You could do it with envelope, cutoff or a second LFO and that's what I'm going to use here. Going into LFO 2 in the modulation, I can choose my shape and adjust it, also changing the phase and speed for the most natural volume curve.
Like LFO 1, I'll also run LFO 2 over 16 bars so that it matches the pitch changes. Then LFO 2 needs assigning to the form OSC amplitude dial and I'll increase the intensity to maximum again. That ties LFO 2 to the volume. Let's hear it. So now I've got the right shape of a single sound but I'll need to stack several of them together to play as a Shepard tone otherwise it's just a simple riser.
Thanks to the LFO controls I know that a single sound is currently two octaves over 16 bars in length so if I trigger every eight bars that should recreate the right effect. I'll program that in a DAW and temporarily I'm going to change the tempo to super fast so I can hear the next changes. It's handy because the LFOs are locked to the DAW tempo so the pitch and volume changes are still relative. The next step is to change the envelope so it has a really long release tail, which will continue the note even after the key is released. I'll also adjust the attack slightly to get rid of any artifacts when the sounds begin.
That's some real basic Shepard tone programming, but with form that's really just the beginning. So let's see what else we can do. So bringing the tempo back down to normal, changing our basic sine wave for something more complex is a good place to start.
And form has got loads of preset options, or you can load in your own samples like this orchestral one. I can change the sample sync speed and handles to match the tempo of my track, and choose different curve presets to add movement. You can add a second oscillator and in this case an octave below the first one gives the sound some weight. And of course adding delay, reverb and warmth effects make everything sound better. Form's really flexible so changing the direction of the pitch is just as simple as reversing the pitch intensity on that control.
So I've really just scratched the surface of what form can do here with its routing, LFOs and envelopes, but there's loads more. Do check out the Native Instruments website for more details and thanks so much for watching.