Audio Demos
- Heroic Desire Keiji Inai (Arranged by Jason Pai)
- Basil Festival Sarah Mancuso
- Warrior's Adventure Tarik Maljanovic
- A Celestial Promise Nabeel Ansari
- Kouyou (Cinema Mix) Andrew Aversa
- Rustling Leaves Charlotte Trapasso
- Deadly Crossroads Sarah Mancuso
- Rumbidum Woods (Anima Mix) Nabeel Ansari
- Rising Second Sun (Anima Mix) Nabeel Ansari
- Sunrise At The Bramble Ian Dorsch
- New Home Artem Akmulin
- Inquisition Sarah Mancuso
- Last Grains Of Sand Sarah Mancuso
- Lively Town Koichi Sugiyama (Arranged by Tarik Maljanovic)
- Telepath Rodeo Sarah Mancuso
- Boardwalk Bar Sarah Mancuso
- Saturday Morning Sarah Mancuso
- Akemi Sarah Mancuso
- Acronym Reactor Sarah Mancuso
- Heroic Desire (Library Only) Keiji Inai (Arranged by Jason Pai)
- A Celestial Promise (Library Only) Nabeel Ansari
- Kouyou (Anima Mix) Andrew Aversa
- Kouyou (Board Mix) Andrew Aversa
- Rustling Leaves (Library Only) Charlotte Trapasso
- Warrior's Adventure (Library Only) Tarik Maljanovic
- Sunrise At The Bramble (Library Only) Ian Dorsch
- New Home (Library Only) Artem Akmulin
- Lively Town (Library Only) Koichi Sugiyama (Arranged by Tarik Maljanovic)
- Akemi (Library Only) Sarah Mancuso
Product Info

Five orchestral string sections & Ensemble patch
8 violins 1, 6 violins 2, 4 violas, 3 cellos, 3 basses, plus a convenient, efficient new Ensemble patch.

Four mic positions in a legendary space
Pristine 24-bit, 48kHz samples (downmixed from 96kHz) captured at Sound City: Close, Decca, Side, and Back.

Choose from 3 hand-sculpted mic mixes or make your own
Choose from Mitsunori Aizawa’s own upfront Board Mix (using his hardware setup at Sound City), our hand-sculpted Anima Mix (a light and airy mix most suited to agile and intricate writing) or Cinema Mix (a dark, smooth mix suitable for cinematic scoring and low string chorales), or build your own with the provided mic signals.

All crucial playing techniques
Sustains, pizzicato, staccato, staccatissimo, spiccato, spiccato secco, tremolo, harmonics, trills (whole-tone, half-tone), long & short decrescendo and sforzando

Expressive dynamics and vibrato
Up to five dynamics per articulation (pp, mp, mf, f, ff) and three vibrato levels (senza, con, molto).

Industry-leading legato
Five distinctive legato types: Legato Bow, Legato Slur, emotional Lyrical Legato, super-agile Runs Legato, and powerful Marcato Legato incorporating adjustable bow noise. Two portamento types: bowed and slurred. 2x round robins for all.

Features

Elegant and streamlined UI

Groundbreaking lookahead mode

Total Articulation Control Technology v3

Deep editing for power users

CONSOLE modular FX rack and mixer
Requirements


200GB disk space
An additional 200GB is required only during installation to store temporary files. Solid state drive recommended. Note that mic positions & mixes can be moved or deleted individually.

8GB of RAM minimum
16GB recommended for loading all sections with the board mix. 32GB recommended for all sections with the All Mics patch.

Apple M1, Intel i5 or equivalent CPU
A faster CPU with more cores will allow you to play more simultaneous voices.

Kontakt Player 7.8.1+
This library will run in the FREE Kontakt Player.

Kontakt Requirements - Mac OS
Intel Macs (i5 or higher): macOS 11 or later
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
Articulation System
Lookahead 2.0 Tutorial
Behind the Scenes Story
Teaser Reveal
Featured Artists & Composers

Neal Acree
World of WarCraft, Diablo III, StarCraft II, Overwatch
"Impact Soundworks has some of the most creative and innovative libraries out there. From world instruments to the insanely deep sampled Shreddage guitar series the Impact catalog is full of must-haves and unexpected and inspiring surprises. Highly recommended!

Christopher Gordon
Ladies in Black, Mao's Last Dancer, Salem's Lot, Master and Commander
"Impact Soundworks' range of guitars and fretted instruments sound amazing and are crafted and nuanced with expert detail. Intuitively set up to get straight to composing. And I have a real soft spot for the juicy, screaming Shreddage 3 Hydra!"

Jeff Broadbent
Assassin’s Creed Identity, Call of Duty Mobile, Resident Evil, Diablo Immortal, Transformers: Dark of the Moon
"ISW creates amazing, creative, and intuitive virtual instruments! I’ve enjoyed using them for over a decade, and they have found their way into many of my music scores. Their wonderfully realistic world instruments showed up in a recent Nexon video game, Shreddage 3 Stratus on the score for Grid, and Super Audio Boy is a favorite for retro sounds, effects, and fun nostalgia. Highly recommended!"
In a crowded field of string libraries, Tokyo Scoring Strings stands out for its unique sound, extraordinary lookahead technology, and remarkably easy-to-use workflow.
In creating Tokyo Scoring Strings, we wanted it to be fun, inspiring, and easy to use, while still powerful enough to create truly realistic, lifelike performances. We’ve gone to great lengths to polish and perfect our legato so that it sounds perfectly natural and real, whether you’re writing expressive or rapid passages.
The Complete version of Tokyo Scoring Strings gives you incredible fine-grained control, as well as extraordinary levels of detail and the ability to mock up an even wider range of performances due to expanded articulations.
Choose from the following three mic mixes, or design your own from four individual mic positions.
- Board Mix: An upfront mix by Mitsunori Aizawa, using his hardware setup at Sound City.
- Anima Mix: A light and airy mix most suited to agile and intricate writing.
- Cinema Mix: A dark, smooth mix suitable for cinematic scoring and low string chorales.
Individual mic signals in the Mic Mixer patch:
- Close: A very dry mono signal that can be used for adding more crisp detail.
- Decca: A “Decca tree” mic arrangement using cardioid mic.
- Side: An “outriggers” signal, providing a wider stereo image than the Decca.
- Back: Ribbon mics pointed at the wall, with a darker tone that can be used to bring out warmth.
Note for TSS1.0 users: In Tokyo Scoring Strings 2.0, the Close mic position has been reworked to remove bleed mics, giving it a more close and focused sound. The ‘Surround’ and ‘Room’ positions have been removed in favor of the ‘Side’ and ‘Back’ positions, which provide more contrast.
Lookahead is the ideal solution to make programming parts in MIDI as realistic and easy as possible. This engine mode, available with a single click, allows you to work directly on the grid with consistent delay for all articulations and legato speeds, and polyphonic legato that works perfectly with no additional effort on your part.
For the ultimate in realism and saving time, you can even choose the optional Easy Artic mode, which selects articulations polyphonically without needing to use keyswitches.
The sound of Japanese strings is both captivating and highly unique. What makes it so distinctive? Smaller ensembles recorded in focused studio spaces lend themselves to more agile playing, and a focus on perfection leads to incredible accuracy. These strengths make Japanese ensembles equally capable of delicate nuance and sweeping emotional performances that move listeners to tears. For many of us who have admired Japanese soundtracks for years, this sound has long been a source of inspiration, but it’s been out of reach for most composers outside of Japan — until now.
Our goal with Tokyo Scoring Strings is to give you the orchestral string sound featured in so many world-famous Japanese productions. This project has been a dream come true for all of us at Impact Soundworks, and we’re thrilled to have worked with some of our musical heroes to bring it to life. But we weren’t satisfied with just capturing this remarkable sound; we also sought to deliver an outstanding, inspiring UI, flexible editing, beautiful legato, and recording depth to rival any other industry-standard string libraries.
The updated and improved Tokyo Scoring Strings 2.0 features stunningly realistic, consistent, and smooth legato created using our in-house developed Spectral Fusion System. Using proprietary DSP software, editing, and programming techniques, all 60,000+ legato samples have been carefully balanced and matched to all combinations of source and destination notes, including the associated recorded dynamics.
Normally, this processing would be impossible to achieve through any manual process due to the sheer number of samples involved. That’s why legato recording, editing, and programming is by far the most time-consuming part of creating realistic sample libraries, and why results often come up short — lumpy transitions, rapidly-changing timbre from source to destination, a “sucking” effect that makes the recording space sound suddenly lifeless, and more.
The unprecedented, library-wide balance from the Spectral Fusion System does not compromise the versatility or range of legato either; Tokyo Scoring Strings includes a total of seven distinct legato and portamento types along with four independent speed profiles which allow stunning and consistent performances at all dynamics and tempos.
Writing music is a deeply personal act of creation, and your workflow preferences are just as unique. Our TACT system allows you to personalize how you use Tokyo Scoring Strings to suit how you work best, regardless of which DAW you prefer or whether you use a MIDI controller or not. Do you rely on keyswitches, stick to MIDI CCs, set everything by velocity, or use a combination of all three?
If you can dream up the perfect articulation mapping, you can make it real in Tokyo Scoring Strings.
If you already own Tokyo Scoring Strings Essentials, you automatically qualify for a discount when you upgrade to this Complete version. Log in and check your Personalized Deals for more information.
View the Tokyo Scoring Strings comparison chart to see what is available in every edition!
We are honored to have partnered with an incredible team of musicians and collaborators in Japan:
- Koichiro Muroya Strings, led by Koichiro Muroya. The most in-demand session ensemble in all of Japan. Their exquisite playing can be heard on many of your favorite soundtracks.
- Mitsunori Aizawa, Japan’s top engineer, responsible for mixing and recording hundreds of world-famous scores.
- Sound City, an incredible recording space with over 60 years of history. This choice of studio gives Tokyo Scoring Strings a tighter, more focused sound that lends itself extremely well to more agile playing and mixing with external reverb.
- 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 project from the very beginning.
Tokyo Scoring Strings features five independently recorded sections (Violins 1, Violins 2, Viola, Cello, Bass), as well as an Ensemble Patch, in a typical Japanese ensemble size (8/6/4/4/3) suitable for small and large productions alike.
Tokyo Studio Strings includes a well-rounded set of articulations recorded in superb detail. We have paid particular attention to delivering outstanding legato as well as the agility and crisp short notes that are such a strength of smaller Japanese string sections. You’ll be able to easily write and mock-up sweeping melodies, intimate legato, and aggressive agile passages.
Articulations
- Arco (Sustain) – 5 dynamics, 3 vibrato levels (senza, con, molto)
- Bowed Legato – 3 dynamics, 2x rr
- Lyrical Legato – 3 dynamics, 2x rr
- Marcato Legato – 3 dynamics, 2x rr
- Slurred Legato – 3 dynamics, 2x rr
- Run Legato – 3 dynamics, 2x rr
- Bowed Portamento – 3 dynamics
- Slurred Portamento – 3 dynamics
- Rebow – 3 dynamics, 5x rr
- Staccato – 5 dynamics, 6x rr
- Staccatissimo – 5 dynamics, 6x rr
- Spiccato – 4 dynamics, 6x rr
- Crisp (Secco) Spiccato – 2 dynamics, 6x rr
- Sforzando – Dotted eighth & dotted quarter lengths, 3x rr
- Decrescendo – Dotted eighth & dotted quarter lengths, 3x rr
- Pizzicato – 3 dynamics, 4x rr
- Tremolo – 4 dynamics
- Trills – 2 dynamics, whole tone and half tone
- Releases – natural, excited, staccato, decrescendo, and harmonics
- Harmonics
A beautiful new version of our Console modular FX rack and mixer is included with the updated Tokyo Scoring Strings 2.0. Here, you can access over 40 different analog and digitally-modeled effects ranging from EQs, compressors, and limiters, to multiple flavors of reverbs and delays. You can sculpt and shape Tokyo Scoring Strings entirely in Console without using a single external plugin!
Download the Console manual here to learn more!
Reviews


Testimonial – Hiroyuki Sawano (Attack on Titan, Kill La Kill, Seven Deadly Sins)
“I was curious about TSS because my work friends, Mr. Muroya and Mr. Aizawa were involved in the project. It was recorded in a studio that I often use for my string recording. I have enjoyed using this library as its sound presence and moderate ambience is unique and different compared to overseas recorded libraries that I usually use. I think it can be used effectively in a wide range of genres, not only for epic sounds, but also for rock, pop and dance music.”


Testimonial – Yasunori Nishiki (Octopath Traveler)
“It sounds exactly like what I’m used to hearing, Muroya Strings x Sound City x Mitsunori Aizawa! The staccato and pizzicato reverberation in particular gave me a sense of Sound City’s unique reverb, and I felt like I was in the Sound City control room. The sound definitely has the sense of Japanese strings and studio, making it easy to use for any kind of music. I believe this library delivers the sound of Japan to the world!”


Testimonial – Satoru Kosaki (Lucky Star, Monogatari, Beastars)
“I feel proud that a library made by close representative members of the Japanese soundtrack industry will be released. I played back MIDI data from one of my past compositions which was eventually recorded with the exact same team, and it sounded astonishingly similar. I was also impressed by how easily I was able to produce their sound without having to adjust or mix any details such as the space size, instrument balance, and legato speed, etc. I would absolutely recommend this library to anyone who wants to replicate the sound of Japanese soundtracks, and personally, I feel it will prove to be crucial in my arrangement process as it will be so much easier to imagine the final recorded result.”


Tokyo Scoring Strings – Kevin Kuschel
“But when it comes to smaller section-sized string libraries with a great legato, TSS has become a valid, new contender here that also brings a whole lot of workflow power to the table. If you want that JRPG tone with a smaller, focused ensemble size, for telling musical stories in a big context, then TSS is for you.”
Kevin Kuschel (12/21)


Tokyo Scoring Strings – StrongMocha
“Tokyo Scoring Strings is the answer to any composer’s dreams of having a world-class strings library in their arsenal. It’s also perfect for those who’ve never used such an instrument before because it has everything from deep-sampled playing techniques and expressive scripting that will take care of all the work of creating the perfect sound for you…not limited to just movie soundtracks or anime themes, as they could also fit well with anything from jazz, rock & roll, or even heavy metal!…The library is so much more than I ever could’ve imagined. It does seem like a magical palace, and it’s perfect for people who love to compose and produce.” (5/5 stars)
Thorsten Meyer (StrongMocha)