Unlike the long, booming 808s of hip-hop, the kicks in this style are often short, slightly overdriven, and tuned to sit beneath the bassline. The Starboy Outtatown kit typically features kicks that have a "thud" rather than a "boom," allowing room for the sub-bass and the synth melody to dance around them.
The mailer said the package would arrive by Friday, but by Saturday morning there was still nothing on the porch. Jonah had almost convinced himself he'd imagined the order at 2 a.m. last week—the impulsive click, the glowing checkout button, the promise of a sound that could finally rescue his bedroom beats from mediocrity. He brewed coffee, scrolled through the store’s tracking page, and then, like a small planetary alignment, the courier app pinged: Delivered.
On the stoop, half-hidden behind yesterday’s flyers, was a slim black box with a sticker: STARBOY — OUTTATOWN DRUM KIT. No branding beyond that and a single, hand-drawn star. His heart thudded in syncopation with the rhythm he’d been trying to catch for months. Inside the box, nested in foam, were seven compact modules—pads of matte ceramic, each the size of a coiled cassette—and a small brushed-metal controller etched with constellations. An envelope tucked under the foam contained one business card and a slip of paper with three words: PLAY. LISTEN. RUN.
Jonah set the kit up on his desk, connected the controller, and slid in a pair of headphones. The first tap—a soft thumb on the smallest pad—unfurled a sound like a distant subway door closing. He smiled. The second pad answered with a crisp snare that sounded less like wood and more like attention. The third produced an 808 sub that didn’t simply hit his chest; it rearranged it. Each module had a name printed in tiny letters: OUTTARIM, NIGHTLACE, TINSEL, GHOSTPULSE, MIDWAY, MOONHUB, and one more in a language he couldn't place: STARFARE.
He began recording, letting the simple click-click pattern breathe. The kit felt alive—reactive to velocity, yes, but also to intention. When Jonah hesitated, the pads softened. When he pushed, the sounds sharpened, layering harmonics he hadn’t expected. It was as if the drum kit were listening not only to his fingers but to the shape of the rhythms in his head.
By the third hour his apartment windows had fogged and his coffee had turned cold. He’d built a loop that felt cinematic but intimate: a low-outta 808 locked to a tape-echoed hi-hat, a rimshot that sounded like a camera shutter, and the faintest high-end chime—Starfare?—that hovered like neon above the beat. He saved the file as “Outtatown 1.” On a whim, he uploaded a short clip to a private message and sent it to Lena, the mix engineer he trusted.
She replied with a single line: This is a mood. Where’d you get the kit?
Jonah considered telling her the truth—that he’d stumbled on a hush-shop link in a forum and spent the last of his tips to buy whatever the hell this was. Instead he said, “Outtatown. New kit. Try it?” She asked him to send stems, and he did, hollow-eyed and slightly euphoric.
Over the next week the drum kit became Jonah’s cartographer. He mapped its sounds across late nights and insomniac mornings, sampling the moonlit rim, the outta-808, and an odd reverse-clap that he discovered by brushing the pad instead of hitting it. Each session revealed a new micro-gesture: if you rubbed the edge of Moonhub you got a seaside shiver; if you tapped Ghostpulse twice then held, a vocal chop threaded through like a whisper. The kit felt less like hardware and more like a collaborator with mood swings and a sense of humor.
Lena returned the mix with notes that felt like invitations: “Bring the Starfare forward. Let the Outtarim breathe. Automate the Ghostpulse reverb.” She added an unexpected file: a short vocal take—grainy, distant—where a woman sang, almost inaudibly, “Get outta town, but bring me back.” It looped like an old memory, both accusation and benediction.
Word leaked. A producer Jonah respected asked if he could sample the rimshot. A small boutique label offered to press 300 copies of an EP if Jonah could finish it by month’s end. The city began to feel different—like a place with more pockets of silence to fill. When people asked how he made the sounds, Jonah would smile, say “Starboy Outtatown Drum Kit,” and catch himself deciding how much mystery to keep.
One night, after a showcase at a cramped venue downtown, a man in a worn leather jacket waited by the merch table. He introduced himself as Marlowe, a courier once and now something between collector and confidant. He didn’t ask how Jonah liked the kit. Instead he said, “It’s not just the sounds. It brings people to places they used to be.” He reached into his jacket and pulled a Polaroid: a grainy shot of a street Jonah realized he knew—the alley where he’d first learned how to program drums, years ago, sitting on a milk crate. In the picture a younger Jonah crouched in the exact frame, laughing with someone whose face was half shadow.
“How’d you—” Jonah started.
Marlowe shrugged. “Kits have history. Sounds carry stories. You put one into the right hands and it remembers.”
Jonah thought about the note that came with the kit—PLAY. LISTEN. RUN.—and understood, finally, that it was not instruction but a sequence. Play: create. Listen: permit the kit to answer. Run: follow where it leads. He began to notice small coincidences: a baritone taxi horn that matched the Outtarim tone, a street performer whose rhythm mirrored his greatest loop. The city and kit conspired, overlapping in ways that made him certain that someone—something—had stitched the samples from life itself.
As the EP climbed through local playlists, Jonah received messages from others who’d bought the kit. Short clips arrived—city soundscapes stitched into garage bands and lullabies, a techno track that used Moonhub as its heartbeat, a folk singer who turned Starfare into a harmonica mimic. Each clip felt like a postcard from someone riding the same train he was on. Starboy Outtatown Drum Kit
Then came the unanswered message that changed the rhythm: an invitation to a secluded studio on the outskirts of town—address included. Jonah drove out on a winter afternoon, the road a thin ribbon between pines. The studio lived in an old train depot. Inside, the walls were lined with instruments, and at the center, on a pedestal like a relic, sat a single pad from the original Starboy kit, yellowed at the edges. A woman greeted him—no note, no fanfare—just steady eyes and the same vocal tone from Lena’s file.
“We collect them,” she said. “Each kit keeps a fragment. Some are generous; some are possessive. It matters how you play.”
She reached out and tapped the pad once. Jonah felt a familiar pressure in his chest and a chorus of distant traffic answered from the speakers. “If you want to keep making, you’ll learn the rules,” she said. “Play. Listen. Run. And when it’s time, give it away.”
Jonah left with new modules—small, hand-soldered elements that altered the kit’s temperament—and a sense of stewardship. The Starboy Outtatown Drum Kit had given him something he hadn’t realized he lacked: permission to trust unexpected rhythms. It taught him that sound could be a map and that maps change when other people read them.
Months later, with vinyls sold out and a modest tour booked, Jonah boxed the original kit and mailed it to a young beatmaker in a city on the other coast. He enclosed a note: PLAY. LISTEN. RUN. He did not write anything else. The parcel arrived one foggy morning, and Jonah imagined a knock on some other door, a new pair of hands lifting a pad, the first tentative tap that would open another chain of coincidences.
On the last night before his tour, Jonah sat on the rooftop and listened to the city breathe—a thousand small percussive lives. He tapped the beat he’d built when the kit first arrived, soft and steady, and heard, threaded into the night, a dozen replies: footsteps, a distant laugh, the hiss of rain on neon. The rhythm rolled onward, and Jonah realized the kit had not given him a sound so much as a neighborhood—a network of people, places, and echoes that moved whenever someone chose to play.
The Starboy Outtatown Drum Kit didn’t make him a star. It made him part of a current, one that carried songs between strangers and stitched neighborhoods into albums. That, he decided, was the point.
PLAY. LISTEN. RUN.
Starboy & Outtatown production style, characterized by its "chaotic," high-energy Hyperpop and Rage aesthetic for artists like Ken Carson, is often packaged in "stash" or "circuit" kits. These kits typically include a blend of aggressive drums and synth presets for plugins like Serum. Typical Kit Contents
Official and community-curated kits in this style, such as the starboyrob 2023 drum stash , generally contain over 700 sounds: ProducerWAV Percussion One-Shots
: 260+ 808s, 50+ Claps, 60+ Hi-Hats, 60+ Snares, and various Rims/Percs. Melodic Elements : 50+ Bass one-shots and high-quality FX. Utility Files
: Drum MIDI patterns and FL Studio Mixer presets to achieve the signature distorted sound. Synth Banks
: Often includes Serum or Massive presets like "Synth Souls," "Metropolic Lead," and "Fat Rio Bass". Sound Design & Production Tips To replicate the Starboy/Outtatown "Chaos" style: : Use a high BPM, typically between 132 and 146 BPM Key Sounds
: Look for "metal-like" percussion and aggressive, distorted 808s. Essential VSTs
: Serum is the primary synth used for the signature "melee" and "fragile" lead sounds. Where to Find Premium Stash Kits : Available on platforms like ProducerWAV Rocket Powered Sound Free "Type" Kits : Community-made versions like the 2hollis + Starboy Type Kit Starboy Sample Packs Reddit Communities Unlike the long, booming 808s of hip-hop, the
The Starboy & Outtatown Drum Kit refers to a collection of high-energy, "virtual" drum sounds popularized by production duo Starboy (Anton Martin Mendo) and Outtatown (Tobias Dekker). They are pioneers of the Rage and Hyperpop trap subgenres, having executive produced for Ken Carson and contributed heavily to Playboi Carti’s Whole Lotta Red. Kit Characteristics and Sound Design
The "Starboy x Outtatown" sound is defined by its abrasive, digital texture and high-tempo energy.
Abrasive 808s: The kits typically feature heavily distorted, "crunchy" 808s that cut through dense synth layers.
"Melee" Drum Textures: Many sounds have a metallic, "melee-like" quality, often created through heavy saturation or synthesis in tools like Serum or Massive.
High-Velocity Percussion: Claps and snares are usually snappy and high-pitched to complement the fast BPMs (often 140–150+) common in Rage beats.
Dynamic High-End: Producers often use sidechain compression to make hi-hats "duck" when the kick or clap hits, adding a rhythmic groove to an otherwise static digital loop. Core Influences and Placements
If you are looking for these sounds, you are essentially chasing the "Opium" or "Hyperpop.jp" aesthetic. Notable works featuring these drum styles include:
The Starboy & Outtatown Drum Kit is a staple for producers looking to capture the "Hyperpop" and aggressive trap sound popularised by Playboi Carti and Ken Carson. To make this topic useful, I’ve broken down a "feature" guide that focuses on how to actually apply these sounds to create that specific high-energy vibe. ⚡ Feature Guide: Mastering the "Vamp" Sound
This drum kit isn't just about samples; it's about a specific workflow. Use these steps to get the most out of the kit:
The Foundation (132–152 BPM): Most Starboy and Outtatown beats sit in this fast-paced range.
Layering Hyperpop Melodies: Before the drums, start with distorted square or sine waves from synths like Serum or Massive. Use the minor pentatonic scale to hit that signature "dark but happy" vibe. Signature Drum Elements:
The 808: Use hard-hitting, distorted 808s that follow the root notes of your melody. For a cleaner sound, turn the "cut self" option on and crank the velocity.
Clap Over Snare: These kits often swap traditional snares for aggressive claps, sometimes adding extra claps on off-beats for added energy.
Hi-Hat Patterns: Stick to a simple two-step pattern, but interject with quick triplets to create "bounce". Mixing Secrets:
Soft Clipper: Put a soft clipper on your master channel to let the drums "knock" without clipping the audio. The enduring popularity of the Starboy Outtatown Drum
Sidechaining: Producers often use sidechaining between the kick and 808 to ensure the kick cuts through the heavy low-end. 🛠 Tools & Integration
If you are looking to download or use these kits, you can find community-curated versions on platforms like Reddit's Drumkits community. For technical setups:
Logic Pro: You can import these samples into the Drum Machine Designer to trigger them with MIDI pads.
FL Studio: Most tutorials recommend using FPC or simply dragging samples directly into the Channel Rack.
Here’s a professional write-up for the Starboy Outtatown Drum Kit, suitable for a producer’s marketplace, blog, or social media drop.
The enduring popularity of the Starboy Outtatown Drum Kit speaks to a shift in production values. For years, producers chased the "Lex Luger" sound—heavy, distorted, and thick. Outtatown championed a different approach: Sterile Precision.
Using this kit forces a producer to rely on groove rather than layering. Because the sounds are so dry, they require precise quantization (or expert swing) to sound good. If you drag a snare from this kit onto your piano roll, you immediately realize that it demands a cleaner arrangement. You find yourself reaching for reverb plugins rather than EQ, trying to create space in a mix that the drums refuse to fill artificially.
Loaded “Starboy_Kick_03” — felt like stepping on a loose floorboard. Added “distant_snare_tape.wav” — too dry, so I sent it to a hall reverb, 40% wet. Now it sounds like a gunshot two blocks away. Layered “outtatown_hat_loop” — that weird off-grid pattern that shouldn’t work but makes everything stumble forward like a tired walk home. Dropped in “808_flat_tire” — slightly detuned, no pitch envelope. Just a long, wounded sub.
Five minutes later: added a vocal loop from the kit — “stargirl_mumble.wav” — just a breath and a half-phrase. Pitched it down -3 semitones. Feels like someone singing through a car window that won’t roll all the way down.
This isn’t a banger. It’s a Polaroid left in a jacket you forgot you owned.
Drum kits—especially those labeled with artist or brand-adjacent names—raise licensing questions:
Producers should inspect included license files and, when uncertain, avoid using clearly identifiable copyrighted recordings as-is.
Despite the misleading nomenclature, the "Starboy Outtatown Drum Kit" is not an official product released by Wizkid (whose nickname is "Starboy") nor his record label. Instead, it is a high-quality, curated collection of drum one-shots, loops, and FX that mimic the exact production style of Wizkid’s go-to production collective: Outtatown (comprised of P2J, Mut4y, and others).
In the producer community, "Starboy" refers to the Wizkid aesthetic, while "Outtatown" refers to the sonic fingerprint of that specific producer crew. Together, the Starboy Outtatown Drum Kit represents a library of sounds designed to replicate the warm, organic, yet punchy percussion found in hits like "Essence," "Ginger," and "Joro."
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