Hellberg – The Girl

Mentioned in this June 3, 2015 Twitter post.

Approaching Nirvana: What’s the best Piano VST/AU? We use EWQL Pianos which is awesome but only has 4 pianos and sometimes I feel like I’m burnt out on them… /A

Hellberg: @ApproachNirvana for "real sounding" pianos I use Alicia's Keys a lot"

Prior to this, Hellberg had stated his use of Alicia's Keys on "The Girl" in the song's official Splice project annotations (released May 1, 2015).

Piano Chords: The whole project started from the chords. I had written the chord progression of the entire track before I did anything else in the track. The piano is Alicia's Keys in Kontakt 5. Not much else on there I think except a ValhallaRoom reverb that I use a lot.

Piano Bassnotes: I separated the lower notes from the the rest of the piano chords because I wanted them to be much more reverb-y than the higher notes which are pretty dry and unprocessed. The lower notes are also played by another VST than the higher ones, the lower one being TruePianos and the higher ones being Alicia's Keys in Kontakt 5.

Used for the piano on "The Girl", as stated by Hellberg in the song's official Splice project annotations (released May 1, 2015).

Piano Chords: The whole project started from the chords. I had written the chord progression of the entire track before I did anything else in the track. The piano is Alicia's Keys in Kontakt 5. Not much else on there I think except a ValhallaRoom reverb that I use a lot.

Piano Bassnotes: I separated the lower notes from the the rest of the piano chords because I wanted them to be much more reverb-y than the higher notes which are pretty dry and unprocessed. The lower notes are also played by another VST than the higher ones, the lower one being TruePianos and the higher ones being Alicia's Keys in Kontakt 5.

Used for the piano on "The Girl", as stated by Hellberg in the song's official Splice project annotations (released May 1, 2015).

Piano Bassnotes: I separated the lower notes from the the rest of the piano chords because I wanted them to be much more reverb-y than the higher notes which are pretty dry and unprocessed. The lower notes are also played by another VST than the higher ones, the lower one being TruePianos and the higher ones being Alicia's Keys in Kontakt 5.

DropPiano: The piano in the drop is made using TruePianos. Like the reverse chords, this also has a WOW-filter on it to give it more edge and character.

Used for the "reverse chords" and "drop piano" on "The Girl", as stated by Hellberg in the song's official Splice project annotations (released May 1, 2015).

Reverse Chords: In my opinion the reverse chords are so important in the track. It's what gives the break that dark, ambient feeling. Without it the break would be so empty. I basically just took the chords, put a bunch of reverb on em, some EQing/filtering and put a Sugabytes [sic] WOW-filter on it. The WOW filter is what gives the sound it's character.

DropPiano: The piano in the drop is made using TruePianos. Like the reverse chords, this also has a WOW-filter on it to give it more edge and character.

Used for the background "VocalLead" on "The Girl", as stated by Hellberg in the song's official Splice project annotations (released May 1, 2015).

VocalLead: Made up with my own voice that I sampled. Put the sample in Fruity Granulizer, which I use for most samples in my projects, and then dragged the melody up an octave.

Mentioned by Hellberg in "The Girl"'s official Splice project annotations (released May 1, 2015).

Piano Chords: The whole project started from the chords. I had written the chord progression of the entire track before I did anything else in the track. The piano is Alicia's Keys in Kontakt 5. Not much else on there I think except a ValhallaRoom reverb that I use a lot.

Piano Bassnotes: I separated the lower notes from the the rest of the piano chords because I wanted them to be much more reverb-y than the higher notes which are pretty dry and unprocessed. The lower notes are also played by another VST than the higher ones, the lower one being TruePianos and the higher ones being Alicia's Keys in Kontakt 5.

Mentioned on Hellberg's Splice page as having been used for "The Girl" and to upload the stems for "Slumber Party" to the website.

(Btw, to avoid any confusion, the whole track was originally made in FL Studio, but due to some techical difficulties we had to upload the stem project in Ableton)