Hellberg

In this Instagram photo, Hellberg shows his studio gear setup. You can see he uses two pairs of studio monitor speakers. Hellberg is asked, "What monitor is that bra?" to which he replies, "A pair of hs5's and a pair of rokit 8's". Hellberg is referring to Yamaha HS5 70W Powered 2-way Studio Monitors.

These are the headphones I use for producing and mixing. Love them, they are super clean and have an awesome "room" to 'em! Really recommend these!

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.

In this Instagram photo of Hellberg's studio, the titular knob of the Mackie Big Knob can be spotted towards the left of the shot.

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.

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)

In this article Hellberg says: "Even though I've been using FL Studio for several years, I only started using Harmor, its built-in plugin synth, a few months ago. Harmor is very different to many other soft synths as it's an additive synthesizer instead of an FM or subtractive one. I myself use Harmor a lot for resynthesising samples from sample packs, as well as taking a small part of a loop or a vocal and making it sound almost unrecognisable with all of Harmor’s functions. You can achieve much more unique sound design with Harmor than most of the other soft synths out there.”

In this article Hellberg says: "This is my go-to compressor. Waves always makes quality products, and this one is no different. The CLA-76 sounds amazing and comes with a lot of presets that are usually pretty much perfect from the get-go, which makes the plugin very quick and easy to use and helps me focus on the actual song - which is what I personally am the most interested in - instead of zoning in on the attack or the ratio settings of the compressor. I love to use the CLA-76 on vocals especially.”

In this Instagram photo, an instance of FL Studio is running on the laptop on the right of the shot. Given the recency of this photo, it's likely to be FL Studio 11.

in this Instagram photo, Hellberg is running an instance of FL Studio on his MacBook Pro. Given the width along the sides of the keyboard keys, this is likely to be the 15" model.

In reply to the question of what monitors are the ones in the picture, Hellberg responds "...a pair of Krk rokit 8s". Because the edges appear to be more rounded than flat, these are likely to be the G2 model of Rokit 8s.

Hellberg uses the Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 audio interface in his home studio, as shown in an Instagram post. He describes it as simple to use, with good preamps, and a great value for the price. He pairs it with Yamaha HS8 monitors and Beyerdynamic DT 990 headphones.

In this photo, posted to his Facebook, one can see a M-Audio Keystation 49es MIDI Controller in Hellberg's studio

In this photo, posted to Hellberg's Facebook, one can see a RME Babyface in his studio.

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 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.

Used on "Slumber Party", as stated by Hellberg in the song's official Splice project annotations (released November 5, 2015).

Awesome Backup Lead: I categorize this lead as a "back up" but really it is very important for the overall sound even though you mostly hear the vocal lead when listening casually to the track. Made in Sylenth!

Deep Housey Midbass: Mixing elements from a bunch of different genres is always fun. I think this midbassy sound that has that 2k15 deep house vibe was a perfect fit with the rest of the track. Made with Sylenth1.

Slide Pad: A Sylenth1 Pad with a lot of slide, might be a bit of distortion on there as well. Decapitator from SoundToys is awesome for that.

Used for the "Slide Pad" on "Slumber Party", as stated by Hellberg in the song's official Splice project annotations (released November 5, 2015).

Slide Pad: A Sylenth1 Pad with a lot of slide, might be a bit of distortion on there as well. Decapitator from SoundToys is awesome for that.

Used on "Slumber Party", as stated by Hellberg in the song's official Splice project annotations (released November 5, 2015).

HipsterSynth: I love this preset from the M1, and I thought it was a fun addition to the break. Sometimes you just gotta add weird stuff that sounds good and hope it works out, haha.

Mallet: Korg M1 <3

PercyArpyThing: Didn't know how to describe it better, weird sounds that play happy melodies seems to be an on going theme for this project haha. This was also made with the M1.

The Piano Riff: This took a while to make. A lot of compression, resampling, reverb and cutting went into making this the way it is now. Making something that is not a real piano sound real and then turning it glitchy and stuttery is very fun, but challenging. The piano is originally from the Korg M1.

Used for the "LeadVocal" on "Slumber Party", as stated by Hellberg in the song's official Splice project annotations (released November 5, 2015).

LeadVocal: Made this by reversing a famous pop artists [sic] vocal, pitching it up a few keys then cutting it up using Fruity Slicer. I love it.

In this article Hellberg says: “Omnisphere is by far my favourite VSTi. Its library of sounds is incredible, with tons of unique samples and instruments. Definitely a must-have for producers who like Nexus or the Korg M1 but could use an upgrade.

“My personal favourite sounds are the kalimbascopes and everything in the Ethnic World section. The customisation/experimentation abilities Omnisphere offers are also spectacular.”