![]() The tension is inherent, so it’s up to you when and how to employ the effect. If you’re a sound designer, post-production engineer, composer, or producer, you’ll want to give the Shepard tone a try anywhere the film or song needs some drama. It definitely has a science fiction-esque quality to it, sort of like the classic hovering UFO sound we’ve all heard countless times. Feeling dizzy yet? How to Use the Effect to Create TensionĪs it is, the Shepard tone is a naturally tense and eerie sound. Shepard tone sounds like a scale that seems to rise forever. You can also reverse the order and create a never-ending descension, too. Our brain fails to perceive the “loop,” and instead interprets the sound as a constantly ascending scale with no resolution. That’s how we create a Shepard tone, or scale.Įach step of the scale fades in and out with the others, and the result is a smooth transition from note to note and octave to octave. We’re almost there! Now, imagine certain octaves going from soft to loud, and others from loud to soft. Let’s take a step back and visualize an ascending chromatic scale now picture that scale copied and pasted in your piano roll in multiple octaves. The key to creating the effect is varying the volumes between octaves. ![]() This is also why you’ll sometimes hear the term Shepard “scale” used to describe the phenomenon. To create the “movement” that we associate with the sound, the sine waves need to ascend the chromatic scale. A Shepard tone doesn’t have one fundamental frequency. At the most basic level, the effect starts with a set of sine waves at the same pitch, layered together across every octave. This justifies the usage of the term chroma in the sense that notes with different chroma values have a different sound color. How Does the Effect Work?Ĭognitive scientist Roger Shepard discovered the illusion 1964. ![]() The tension it creates is undeniable, which is why sound designers and composers rely on this powerful illusion to highlight dramatic moments on screen. At best, it’s unsettling to hear.Įven if you’ve never defined it by name, you’ve most certainly heard the Shepard tone more than likely, in a film. Many people call it the sonic equivalent of a barber pole. The effect is an endless ascension of pitch, seemingly rising to some sort of resolution but never getting there. ![]() The Shepard tone is colloquially referred to as an auditory illusion. Video can’t be loaded because JavaScript is disabled: Shepard Tone () It generates sound on the same note in every audible octave at once, and raises the frequency of each sound. 8Dios Shepard Tones for Kontakt (VST, AU, AAX) contains over 10GB of block-buster grade Shepards. ![]()
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