We design realizable time-dependent semiclassical pulses to invert the population of a two-level system faster than adiabatically when the rotating-wave approximation cannot be applied. Different approaches, based on the counterdiabatic method or on invariants, may lead to singularities in the pulse functions. Ways to avoid or cancel the singularities are put forward when the pulse spans few oscillations. For many oscillations an alternative numerical minimization method is proposed and demonstrated.

7 pages, 5 figures