In Ableton, warp your sample then use the pitch knob in the sample editing window. Make sure you're using the complex or complex pro algorithms (complex auto-adjusts the formant, and is nice for smaller pitch shifts. complex pro lets your change the formant and envelope manually, which give greater control over the sound at the cost of time).

Okay,

So I know I may get some backlash here by buying into the loudness war, but I believe a great amount of the general public prefers loud music as opposed to quiet music, so, I am asking about any tips here to raise the perceived loudness (not necessarily RMS) of my tracks.

Thanks!

Basically the easiest way to make your stuff really damn loud is slam it into a few limiters. If I'm trying to make something insanely loud, I'll first make sure I exaggerate the crap out of my gain stage. Like, parts you want to be quite need to be REALLY quite in your premaster. Then, I'll toss an EQ on and highpass at ~30hz, lowpass at ~20khz to increase headroom. Slap an Ozone preset on, into waves l3 (-.3db output) into an l2 (also -.3db) and then into as many pro-l instances as I need to get the sound loud, but not distorted (all limiters at -.3db). Remember: final master should be at -.3db so when it gets converted into mp3 or whatever, you don't get any clipping.

Many people might hate the loudness war, but it's a fact that the average person equates loudness with quality to a certain extent, so making your mixes louder is beneficial. Just don't overdo it.