Master Hard House Production: Kyle Starkey Style

This tutorial walks through the hard house production style of Kyle Starkey, the artist who helped bring energetic hard house back into the spotlight - from early warehouse raves to headlining major festivals in the Netherlands. Working in FL Studio at 140 BPM with Serum 2, the video rebuilds his signature sound step by step, covering the classic synth leads, vintage organ layers, sampled steps, and drums that define the genre. All sounds used come from the Ignite hard house and trance sample pack.

What Is Kyle Starkey's Hard House Sound?

Kyle Starkey's style blends the classic '90s hard sound with the modern rave aesthetic that has been taking over dance floors in recent years. The sound is supported by major names in the scene and has brought a new generation of producers into the hard house world. Musically, the style is defined by vintage chord synths with movement and instability, deep saw basses with strong grooves, layered organ sounds, and energetic drum loops. Tracks typically run between 140 and 150 BPM, making them fast, driving, and relentless. The use of vintage sample-based sounds - particularly organ presets from classic synthesizers - alongside modern processing techniques is what gives this style its distinctive character and energy on the dance floor.

How to Build the Signature Fifth Lead Using Serum 2

The core lead of this style comes from a patch called "Chord Spring" - an Alpha Juno PWM wavetable inside Serum 2. LFO 1 runs at 0.5 Hz and modulates the wavetable position, creating a subtle instability that mimics the drift of a real vintage synthesizer. LFO 2 runs at 1/16th rate controlling fine tune, adding a vibrato effect. A short envelope opens an MGO Low 18 filter, and a noise layer adds texture. The key feature here is Serum 2's Clip function: rather than using two separate instances, a perfect fifth can be programmed directly within a single wavetable using the clip pattern, with mono and re-trigger enabled. This means playing one note produces both the root and the fifth simultaneously, which is the defining characteristic of the sound. Processing includes a phaser (the most important effect for this patch), a downsampling distortion, delay, and reverb. A low-mid dip keeps it from clashing with the bass.

1. Load the Alpha Juno PWM wavetable in Serum 2
2. Set LFO 1 to 0.5 Hz, modulating wavetable position for vintage instability
3. Set LFO 2 to 1/16th rate controlling fine tune for vibrato
4. Enable the Clip function and program a perfect fifth interval
5. Enable mono and re-trigger in the voice settings
6. Add a phaser, downsampling distortion, delay, and reverb in the effects chain

How to Write a Catchy Hard House Lead Melody

Because the lead patch already contains a perfect fifth, melody writing becomes much more intuitive - even a few notes immediately create a sense of groove and direction. The approach here is to start with a simple rhythmic sketch first, laying down a rhythm without worrying about specific pitches, then refining the notes over that pattern. Keeping the melody mostly repetitive is intentional: the genre requires hypnotic, looping phrases to maintain danceability. However, switching up the melody in the last section of the loop is what elevates a repetitive pattern into something more interesting and unpredictable for the listener. A crush distortion from Destructor, which is a stock FL Studio plugin, is added during post-processing, and low frequencies are rolled off with an EQ to prevent clashing with the bass. The sound should stay full across the spectrum since it is the main melodic element.

How to Program the Deep Saw Bass for Hard House

The bass uses a sustained saw wave preset from the Ignite pack inside Serum 2, with no unison voices - just a single, deep, clean oscillator. An MGO 24 filter has a short envelope linked to it to add attack and transient to the sound. Serum 2's new Utility module is used to ensure the lowest bass frequencies remain in mono, which is important for club-friendly low-end response. After placing the notes, the rhythm is adjusted to add groove - short variation in note length creates more movement than simply holding every note at full length. Processing includes a subtle Destructor classic distortion preset, a very short delay at 7% wet (barely audible but adding slight depth), and a sidechain at 73%. An octave jump can be tried to find the right register for the key of the track - moving the whole pattern up or down can make a significant difference to how it sits in the mix.

What Are Vintage Sampled Steps and How Do You Use Them?

Sampled steps are short percussive hits sampled from classic vintage hardware and layered on the first beat of a bar to add impact at key points in the arrangement. The Ignite pack includes both a classic vintage-style step and a more modern saw-type step. Layering these two together - placing them on the first kick every four or eight bars - significantly increases the impact of the drop without adding a completely new melodic element. All steps in the pack are tuned to C so no additional pitch adjustment is needed. Both samples already have delay and reverb applied internally, making them easy to blend into a mix at full size. These details are what push a hard house drop from sounding competent to sounding finished, adding that last layer of energy that ties all the synth elements together.

• Use a classic vintage step and a modern saw step, layered together
• Place them on the first kick every four or eight bars
• No pitch adjustment needed - all steps in the pack are tuned to C
• Trust the built-in delay and reverb to blend naturally into the mix

How to Build Energy With Drums and Loops in Hard House

The drum section uses a reversed kick before the drop for tension, then opens into a full pattern built from multiple layered top loops from the Ignite pack. Stacking three separate top loops creates a dense, full-sounding drum kit that would be very difficult to achieve with programmed hits alone. A percussion loop adds mid-frequency rhythmic content, and a rave loop - an old-school style loop with raw, retro energy - pushes the overall feel into proper hard house territory. For the vocal arrangement, shout-style vocals and a lead vocal are layered together. The organ lead is reserved for the buildup rather than used in the full drop, which keeps the drop feeling heavier by contrast. Tension strings and noise ambience fill out the buildup, supported by crash drums following the kick pattern, classic uplifters, and down filters at key moments. Automations are kept simple - filtering and volume only.

Every sound featured in this tutorial is from the Ignite sample pack - a hard house and trance producer pack built for FL Studio, containing presets, projects, samples, vocals, and everything needed to produce in this genre. If you want to work with the exact sounds shown in this video, Ignite is the pack to start with.

Tutorial by Niek, co-founder of The Producer School. For more production tutorials, subscribe to The Producer School on YouTube (280K+ subscribers).