You make phonk, but it doesn’t hit like DVRST, Kordhell or HAARPER? This post breaks down what’s actually going on in that sound, using the Atomic Heart soundtrack as the reference.
Atomic Heart came out in 2023 and it’s still one of the best examples of phonk used in a big game. Mick Gordon’s score plus the phonk remixes of Soviet-era hits gave the game a sound nobody else had. Three years later, producers still ask me how to get that vibe.
So here’s the full recipe: the sounds you need, the drum pattern, the melody approach, and concrete Serum 2 settings. I’ll also point you to a couple of packs I made specifically for this style, plus a free Serum 2 preset pack if you want to test the workflow before spending anything.
Why Atomic Heart picked phonk
The devs at Mundfish had a weird brief: a retro-futuristic Soviet Union full of concrete, chrome robots and 1950s pop songs. They needed music that could take old material and make it sound aggressive and modern.
Phonk turned out to be the perfect tool for that. The genre was built on flipping old Memphis rap tapes, so recontextualizing vintage audio is literally its core mechanic. Swap Memphis vocals for Soviet estrada hits and you get the Atomic Heart sound.
That’s the big lesson even if you never touch a Soviet sample: phonk works best when it drags something old into a modern, distorted frame.
What makes the Atomic Heart soundtrack work
A few things happen at once in those tracks:
- Genre collision. Orchestral and vintage pop elements sit on top of hard electronic drums. The contrast is the point.
- Heavy low end. Distorted 808 kicks and basses carry the weight. The melodies are thin and bright on purpose, so the low end has room.
- Tape and vinyl character. Almost everything melodic sounds degraded: pitch wobble, noise, narrow bandwidth. Clean sounds would kill the mood.
- Dynamic layering. In-game, the music changes with the action. You can steal this idea for arrangements: build your track as layers you can add and remove, not as one static loop.
The sounds you need for a phonk beat
Two sounds define phonk more than anything else: the 808 cowbell and the 808 kick.
The cowbell is the lead instrument. Not a percussion hit — a pitched cowbell playing the main melody, usually saturated until it barks. The kick doubles as the bass: a long, distorted 808 that fills the whole low end.
Around those two you add: a snappy snare or clap (often with a short metallic reverb), fast closed hats with velocity variation, a vocal chop or crowd chant, and some kind of degraded melodic layer — strings, choir, an old pop sample or a preset that fakes one.
If you don’t want to synthesize all that from scratch, I built two packs exactly for this style. The House Phonk Sample Pack & Serum 2 Presets (Ultimate Edition) covers drums, cowbells and basses, processed and ready to drop in. And Gamma is a dark phonk pack I made directly inspired by Atomic Heart — melodies, drums and textures in that Soviet retro-futurist mood, 100% royalty free.
How to build an Atomic Heart style beat, step by step
1. Tempo and drums
Pick your lane first. Drift phonk sits around 100–130 BPM with a house-adjacent kick pattern. Classic Memphis-style phonk lives at 140–165 BPM with trap-style drums. The Atomic Heart remixes mostly live in the slower, driving lane.
Start simple: kick on every beat (or the classic kick / kick+snare alternation), snare or clap on 2 and 4, closed hats in 8ths or 16ths. Don’t overcomplicate it — phonk drums are blunt on purpose.
2. Cowbell melody
Write a short, catchy line in a minor key — C minor and E minor are phonk home turf. Four to eight notes, one or two bars, looped. Harmonic minor gives you that slightly evil, Eastern-tinged flavor the Atomic Heart tracks lean on.
Then distort it. A saturator or a guitar amp sim with drive around 30–50% turns a polite cowbell into a phonk lead. High-pass it around 200 Hz so it doesn’t fight the kick.
3. 808 kick and bass
Put a long 808 under the melody, following the roots of your cowbell line. Sidechain everything melodic to the kick — even a fast 2:1 compressor or a volume-shaper doing a 20–30% dip is enough to keep the low end clean.
If your 808s sound weak, grab The best 808 Vol.1 — it’s a one-shot kit of processed 808s that already sit right in a mix. Or design your own: my Serum 2 808 bass guide walks through the whole patch, from sine oscillator to clipper.
4. Atmosphere and texture
This is where the Atomic Heart flavor comes from. Add a degraded melodic layer: strings, choir or an old-sounding pad, pitched down a few semitones, with vinyl noise on top and a low-pass filter around 5–8 kHz. A slow chorus or tape-wobble plugin sells the “old recording” illusion.
One warning about sampling real Soviet-era (or any old) records: you can’t clear those rights as an independent producer, and streaming services will flag them. Use royalty-free melodies instead — that’s exactly why the Gamma melodies exist.
5. Glue and loudness
Phonk is supposed to sound crushed. On the master bus: a soft clipper, then a limiter pushed harder than you’d dare in other genres. If the hats get harsh, pull 2–4 dB around 8–10 kHz before the clipper instead of turning the whole thing down.
Designing phonk sounds in Serum 2
If you’re synthesizing instead of sampling, Serum 2 is my main tool for this. It shipped in March 2025 as a free upgrade for Serum 1 owners, and the new engines matter for phonk specifically: the granular and spectral engines are great for turning any boring sample into a haunted, degraded texture, and the built-in sequencer makes cowbell patterns fast to sketch right inside the synth.
I wrote a full phonk Serum 2 tutorial that covers the cowbell, the 808 and the drift bass patch by patch. And if you’d rather load finished sounds, the Serum 2 Phonk Presets pack has the cowbells, basses and leads pre-built with macros mapped to drive and filter.
New to the synth? Start with Serum 2 for beginners — it covers the layout and the five engines before you get into genre stuff.
FAQ: Atomic Heart phonk production
What BPM is Atomic Heart phonk?
Most of the phonk remixes in the game sit around 110–130 BPM with a driving, house-like kick. Classic phonk runs faster, 140–165 BPM, with trap-style drum programming. Pick based on the energy you want: slower feels heavier, faster feels more aggressive.
What key should I write phonk in?
Minor keys, almost always. C minor, E minor and A minor are the most common. Harmonic minor (raise the 7th degree) instantly adds the dark, slightly exotic flavor you hear in the Atomic Heart tracks.
Can I sample old Soviet songs like the game did?
Legally, no — not without clearing the rights, which the game’s publisher did and you realistically can’t. If you release uncleared samples on Spotify or Apple Music you risk takedowns and lost royalties. Use royalty-free melody packs written in that style instead.
Do I need Serum 2 to make phonk?
No, plenty of phonk is made purely from samples. But one synth that covers cowbells, 808s and pads makes life easier, and Serum 2’s granular engine is genuinely useful for the degraded-texture side of the genre. It’s a free update if you already own Serum 1.
That’s the whole formula: blunt drums, a distorted cowbell melody, a heavy 808 and something old and broken floating on top. If you want to try it today without buying anything, grab the 250+ free Serum 2 presets and start with 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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