So you’re making phonk, but yours doesn’t slap the way DVRST, Kordhell or HAARPER tracks do? Here I’m pulling that sound apart piece by piece, with the Atomic Heart soundtrack as our reference point.
Atomic Heart dropped in 2023, and I still think it’s the best showcase of phonk in a major game. Mick Gordon’s score combined with phonk flips of Soviet-era hits gave it a sonic identity nobody else had. Three years on, people are still asking me how to pull off that vibe.
Here’s the complete recipe: which sounds you need, how the drums go, how to approach melody, plus actual Serum 2 settings. I’ll also mention a couple of packs I built for exactly this style, and there’s a free Serum 2 preset pack if you’d rather try the workflow before spending a cent.
Why Atomic Heart picked phonk
The team at Mundfish was working from a strange brief: a retro-futurist Soviet Union made of concrete, chrome robots and 1950s pop tunes. The music had to take old material and turn it into something aggressive and current.
Phonk was the obvious answer once you think about it. The whole genre grew out of flipping old Memphis rap tapes; recontextualizing vintage audio is baked into its DNA. Trade the Memphis vocals for Soviet estrada songs and the Atomic Heart sound falls out.
Even if you never go near a Soviet sample, that’s the takeaway: phonk hits hardest when it pulls something old into a modern, distorted frame.
What makes the Atomic Heart soundtrack work
Several things are happening simultaneously in those tracks:
- Genre collision. Vintage pop and orchestral parts ride on top of brutal electronic drums. That contrast is the whole trick.
- Heavy low end. The weight comes from distorted 808 kicks and basses. Melodies stay deliberately thin and bright so the bottom has space to breathe.
- Tape and vinyl character. Nearly every melodic element sounds worn out: pitch wobble, hiss, a narrow frequency band. Pristine sounds would wreck the atmosphere.
- Dynamic layering. The in-game music shifts with the action. Steal that for your arrangements: treat the track as layers you stack and strip away rather than one frozen loop.
The sounds you need for a phonk beat
Two sounds define phonk above everything else: the 808 cowbell and the 808 kick.
The cowbell is your lead. Not a one-shot percussion hit, but a pitched cowbell carrying the main melody, usually driven with saturation until it barks at you. The kick pulls double duty as the bass: one long, distorted 808 occupying the entire low end.
Around that pair you stack: a tight snare or clap (a short metallic reverb helps), quick closed hats with some velocity movement, a vocal chop or crowd chant, and a beat-up melodic layer of some kind: strings, choir, an old pop sample or a preset pretending to be one.
Don’t feel like synthesizing all of it yourself? I made two packs for precisely this style. The House Phonk Sample Pack & Serum 2 Presets (Ultimate Edition) handles drums, cowbells and basses, already processed and drop-in ready. Then there’s Gamma, a dark phonk pack I built directly off the Atomic Heart mood: melodies, drums and textures in that Soviet retro-futurist lane, 100% royalty free.
How to build an Atomic Heart style beat, step by step
1. Tempo and drums
First decide which lane you’re in. Drift phonk runs around 100–130 BPM over a house-leaning kick pattern. Old-school Memphis phonk sits at 140–165 BPM on trap drums. The Atomic Heart remixes mostly stay in the slower, driving lane.
Keep the pattern basic: kick on every beat (or the classic kick / kick+snare trade-off), snare or clap landing on 2 and 4, closed hats running 8ths or 16ths. Resist the urge to get clever — phonk drums are blunt by design.
2. Cowbell melody
Write something short and sticky in a minor key: C minor and E minor are where phonk lives. Four to eight notes across one or two bars, then loop it. Want that slightly evil, Eastern-flavored color the Atomic Heart tracks trade on? Harmonic minor gets you there.
Now wreck it. A saturator or guitar amp sim with drive somewhere around 30–50% converts a polite cowbell into a proper phonk lead. High-pass around 200 Hz so it stays out of the kick’s way.
3. 808 kick and bass
Lay a long 808 underneath, tracking the roots of your cowbell melody. Sidechain every melodic element to the kick; a quick 2:1 compressor or a volume-shaper carving a 20–30% dip is all it takes to keep the bottom end tidy.
Weak 808s? Pick up The best 808 Vol.1: one-shots processed to sit in a mix straight away. Prefer building your own? My Serum 2 808 bass guide covers the entire patch, sine oscillator through to clipper.
4. Atmosphere and texture
Here’s where the actual Atomic Heart flavor lives. Bring in a degraded melodic layer (strings, choir or something pad-like that sounds old), pitch it down a few semitones, sprinkle vinyl noise over it, and low-pass around 5–8 kHz. A slow chorus or a tape-wobble plugin completes the “ancient recording” illusion.
Quick word of caution on sampling actual Soviet-era (or any vintage) records: as an independent producer you have no realistic way to clear those rights, and streaming platforms will catch it. Royalty-free melodies are the answer — that’s literally why the Gamma melodies exist.
5. Glue and loudness
Phonk should sound crushed. On the master: soft clipper first, then a limiter driven harder than you’d ever allow in another genre. Hats turning harsh? Cut 2–4 dB around 8–10 kHz before the clipper rather than backing the whole mix off.
Designing phonk sounds in Serum 2
When I synthesize rather than sample, Serum 2 is my go-to for this style. It arrived in March 2025 as a free upgrade for Serum 1 owners, and the new engines are genuinely relevant here: granular and spectral will convert any dull sample into a haunted, decayed texture, and the built-in sequencer means cowbell patterns get sketched right inside the synth in seconds.
There’s a full phonk Serum 2 tutorial on the blog covering the cowbell, the 808 and the drift bass, patch by patch. If loading finished sounds is more your speed, the Serum 2 Phonk Presets pack ships the cowbells, basses and leads ready-made, with macros already wired to drive and filter.
First time in the synth? Serum 2 for beginners is the place to start; it walks through the layout and the five engines before any genre-specific stuff.
FAQ: Atomic Heart phonk production
What BPM is Atomic Heart phonk?
The phonk remixes in the game mostly hover around 110–130 BPM with a pushing, house-style kick. Traditional phonk goes quicker, 140–165 BPM with trap drum programming. Choose by the energy you’re after: slow reads heavy, fast reads aggressive.
What key should I write phonk in?
Minor, nearly always. C minor, E minor and A minor come up the most. Raise the 7th degree for harmonic minor and you immediately get that dark, faintly exotic color from the Atomic Heart tracks.
Can I sample old Soviet songs like the game did?
Not legally. The rights would need clearing, which the game’s publisher managed and you realistically can’t. Put uncleared samples on Spotify or Apple Music and you’re looking at takedowns and lost royalties. Royalty-free melody packs written in that style are the safe route.
Do I need Serum 2 to make phonk?
No — a lot of phonk is built entirely from samples. Still, having one synth that handles cowbells, 808s and pads simplifies everything, and Serum 2’s granular engine really earns its keep on the degraded-texture side of the genre. Owners of Serum 1 get it as a free update anyway.
And that’s the formula in full: blunt drums, a distorted cowbell line, a fat 808, and something old and broken drifting over the top. Want to try it today for free? Grab the 250+ free Serum 2 presets and head straight for the bass and lead folders.
Stay inspired,
Max
I run Monosounds.studio and make the packs myself. Ten-plus years of producing, 97+ releases, 16,000+ downloads. Every Serum 2 preset we ship passes a CPU check on a mid-range laptop and gets used in a real track before release. If it does not survive a mix, it does not go in the pack.
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