Tokyo Scoring Drum Kits

The premier collection of acoustic drum kits (and kit ensemble), recorded and mixed by Japan’s top recording engineer Mitsunori Aizawa at the legendary Sound City Studio. Performed by drum master Ken Higeshiro, these unique and versatile drum sounds can be heard across countless anime openings, battle themes, jazz fusion tracks, and everything in between. With Tokyo Scoring Drum Kits, you can finally add this unmistakable percussive energy to your own music — and it’s punchy and flexible enough to become your drum library of choice in other contexts as well!

$299

$299

64 in stock

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    World-Class Support

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    Loyalty
    Program

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    World-Class
    Support

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    Loyalty
    Program

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    Authentic and
    Realistic Sounds

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    Deep Customization
    for Power Users

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    Authentic and
    Realistic Sounds

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    Deep Customization
    for Power Users

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    Inspiring
    Presets

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    Easy-to-Use
    Interface

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    Inspiring
    Presets

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    Easy-to-Use
    Interface

Audio Demos

  1. Find Your Way Andrew Aversa
  2. Kaoru Toni'o
  3. Atrium Sarah Mancuso
  4. Sound City DNB Andrew Aversa
  5. Epic Ensembles Andrew Aversa
  6. what if i never see the sun again mikeHEARTu
  7. Ziggurat Sarah Mancuso
  8. Joyful Outskirt Michael Lee
  9. Acoustic Pop Andrew Aversa
  10. Marching Against the Storm Andreas Wimmer
  11. Chilled Jam Tremendouz
  12. Toast Jam Christian Yoder
  13. Flaming Flam Matias Dapena (Mixed by Leandro Sabino)
  14. Epic Ensembles (Drums Only) Andrew Aversa
  15. Find Your Way (Drums Only) Andrew Aversa
  16. Sound City DNB (Drums Only) Andrew Aversa
  17. Acoustic Pop (Drums Only) Andrew Aversa
  18. Marching Against the Storm (Drums Only) Andreas Wimmer
  19. Toast Jam (Drums Only) Christian Yoder
  20. Flaming Flam (Drums Only) Matias Dapena (Mixed by Leandro Sabino)
  21. Joyful Outskirt (Drums Only) Michael Lee
  22. Kaoru (Drums Only) Toni'o
  23. Chilled Jam (Drums Only) Tremendouz

Product Info

Content

Five acoustic drum kits and one ensemble

Custom kits assembled and performed by top session drummer Ken Higeshiro, recorded by legendary engineer Mitsunori Aizawa.

Three unique sample sets

Separate patches featuring: Aizawa Signature mix (12 adjustable mic channels with bleeds), Full mix (16 adjustable channels with bleeds), and Board mix (12 channels, no bleeds)

Powerful drum kit ensemble

Three drum kits played simultaneously: includes kick, snare, three toms (hand, stick, and rimshot), hihat, two crashes, and ride.

Extensive articulations and techniques

Up to: five snare articulations (center rim, center, flam, rimshot, roll), seven hihat articulations (pedal, closed, closed tip, half open, semi-open, open, open tip), and four ride articulations (tip soft, tip hard, cup, smash)

Exhaustive sampling depth

Up to 10x dynamic levels and 10x round robins per drum. Over 170,000 samples included.

Dozens of snapshots

Each of the 10 included patches has at least 3 snapshots with carefully-adjusted mixes and FX for many styles.

TSDK Kits

Features

Beautiful and elegant UI
Powerful console mixer and FX rack
Submixer and bleeds
Completely customizable mapping
Three playback modes

Requirements

1688641251image+4+(1)
75GB disk space

7200 RPM hard drive or solid state drive recommended. Note that mic positions can be moved or deleted individually.

8GB of RAM minimum

More RAM will allow you to load more patches, mixes, mic channels, and bleeds simultaneously.

Kontakt Player 6.7

This library will run in the FREE Kontakt Player.

Kontakt Requirements - Mac OS

Intel Macs (i5 or higher): macOS 10.14, 10.15, 11 or 12 (latest update).
Apple Silicon Macs (via Rosetta 2 & natively on ARM in Standalone or in hosts that support it): macOS 11 or 12 (latest update)

Kontakt Requirements - Windows

Windows 7, Windows 8, or Windows 10 (latest Service Pack, 32/64-bit). Intel Core i5 or equivalent CPU. Graphics hardware support for OpenGL 2.1 or higher. Windows 10 strongly recommended.

Tutorials

Full Walkthrough

Epic Ensembles Demo

Custom Mapping

Trailer Premiere

Details

Japanese soundtracks are known for blending elements of rock music with orchestral tracks, often through incorporating a drum kit alongside more traditional orchestration. This is an essential feature of the Tokyo Scoring sound we seek to bring to composers around the world, and it’s a particular area of expertise for our mixing engineer partner Mitsunori Aizawa.

That’s why we selected acoustic drum kits for the second entry in the Tokyo Scoring Series!

Tokyo Scoring Drum Kits was recorded in the same space and by the same engineer as Tokyo Scoring Strings, ensuring that it can be easily mixed with that library. Besides plenty of detailed close micing and overheads, the library includes three ambient positions, delivering superb flexibility to dial in as much (or as little) of SOUND CITY’s unique room sound as you’d like.

With five unique kits, a drum kit ensemble, and so much mix flexibility, Tokyo Scoring Drum Kits delivers not only ideal sounds for Japanese-style soundtrack scoring, but also rock, metal, pop, funk, and epic music.


Our Japanese Partners


We are once again honored to partner with an incredible team of musicians and collaborators in Japan:

  • Ken Higeshiro, one of Japan’s top session drummers, whose work can be heard on over 200 projects and who is a frequent collaborator of composers such as Hiroyuki Sawano, Yuki Hayashi, and our Tokyo Scoring series partner Masaru Yokoyama.
  • Mitsunori Aizawa, Japan’s top engineer, responsible for mixing and recording hundreds of world-famous scores. He is a specialist in recording & mixing drums.
  • Sound City, an incredible recording space with over 60 years of history. This choice of studio allows for blending with other Tokyo Scoring Series libraries, and a wide range of close to spacious mix options.
  • Renowned anime & film composer Masaru Yokoyama, who brought his experience recording scores around the world through his companies Plugnote and MiracleBus.
  • Crypton Future Media and SonicWire, our Japanese distributors who have helped with the Tokyo Scoring Series from the very beginning.

Tokyo Scoring Drum Kits proudly features a drum kit custom-made by riddim.


Three Distinct Mixes


Whether you want an instant, production-ready out-of-the-box sound, OR maximum mixing flexibility, Tokyo Scoring Drum Kits includes every possible option you could want.

In the Full Mix, each kit piece includes up to 3 spot mics (e.g. snare top 1, top 2, bottom), along with overheads and three ambient positions. But you ALSO have access to bleeds for every other mic. So, if you want your snare to include some natural resonance off the tom mics, you have full control! Sixteen (16) mics are available for mixing and bleeds.

The Aizawa Mix is a completely different sample set with the same performances, processed offline and mixed by Aizawa himself through his ‘secret sauce’ hardware. Twelve (12) mics are available for further mixing and bleed control.

Finally, the Board Mix patch gives you the most polished and immediate sound possible, with low RAM and CPU usage, letting you focus on writing rather than mixing. Each channel can still be mixed independently: only sub-mixes and bleed control is not available.


Drum Content


Tokyo Scoring Drum Kits includes five exhaustively-sampled drum kits, each with a unique sound ideal for different styles of music like rock, pop, metal, etc. Each piece is recorded in extensive detail with up to 10x dynamics and 10x round robins, and naturally, you can mix and match components of these kits to create your ideal tone.

The drum ensemble (a sixth kit) features three kits played simultaneously and instantly delivers an epic sound.

Individual Drum Kit Pieces:

  • 8 crashes
  • 4 hi-hats (max articulations: closed, closed tip, half open, open, pedal, semi-open)
  • 5 kicks
  • 3 ride cymbals (max articulations: cup, smash, tip)
  • 5 snares (max articulations: center, center rim, flam, rimshot, roll)
  • 16 toms
  • 1 china

Drum Kit Ensemble:

  • Crash left & right (hit)
  • Hi-hat (closed, half open, open, pedal)
  • Ride cymbal (tip)
  • Snare (center, flam, rimshot, roll)
  • Toms (stick, hand hits, rimshots)

Console: Modular FX Rack and Mixer


Console is a fully-featured mixer, modular effects rack, and pedal board, designed to give you full control over your drum mix. Effects include multiple EQs (digital and analog-style), compressors, spatial FX, modulation FX, tape saturation, amps, distortion pedals, reverbs, and more.

Each mic channel (up to 16, depending on patch loaded) can have up to 8 FX in any order, plus another 8 slots on the master channel, with support for send routing as well. Each channel can also be routed to separate Kontakt outputs for further mixing and effects in your DAW.

Download the Console manual here to learn more!

Reviews

stars
Tokyo Scoring Drum Kits – Rock oN Company

“If you’re looking for a professional drum sound that is both versatile and shining with individuality, TSDK is a perfect choice showcasing Japan’s legendary drum sounds.”

-Scfed Ibe (Rock oN Company)

stars
Tokyo Scoring Drum Kits – DTMer

“Compared to libraries like Addictive Drums, BFD, Superior Drummer and others like them, the raw sound of [TSDK] stands out in a good way with the drum & room tone… These kits are overflowing with technique. Combined with the drum ensemble, you can create music exactly like top Japanese productions.”

(DTMer)

stars
Tokyo Scoring Drum Kits – Watanabe Junya

“This library is simply the best concept. If you are looking for Japanese drum sounds, there is nothing better.”

Watanabe Junya

stars
Tokyo Scoring Drum Kits – Computer Music JP

“This is absolutely a first-choice drum library for songwriting and music production, as it strikes a great balance between functionality and easy, stress-free usability. Since MIDI loops are not included, knowing a bit about drum programming will make it even more appealing.”

ゆにばす (Computer Music JP)

stars
Tokyo Scoring Drum Kits – Future Music

“This collection is not cheap, but it is large (75GB), of high quality, and with plenty of flexibility. I found TSDK excellent, and with enough sonic variation that I could see myself using it across a wide range of tracks. It can do clean contemporary jazz fusion as easily as dirty vintage rock drums, with the ability to act as the rhythmic core, or as a percussive addition, to electronic/hybrid styles. At the larger end it can also hold its own when outright bombast is required.” (9/10)

Bruce Aisher (Future Music – April 2023)

stars
Testimonial – Jimmy ‘Big Giant Circles’ Hinson (Black Ops 4, Borderlands 2, Threes)

“Between Shreddage, Super Audio Cart, Juggernaut, and Mega Brass I don’t remember the last time I haven’t used an Impact Soundworks instrument in a track. The attention to detail is astonishing and it’s all so easy to use out of the box, which is a big deal.”