YAMAHA Soprano Saxophone, YDS-120

Excellent E Sax. It's basically 2 of its kind. It's lightweight and feels durable enough to not worry about it breaking during travel. The sound quality is about what you'd expect from a E horn... It won't be like a real sax but this thing isn't designed for playing a concert. (Although it can with the correct software) Rather this product is designed for practice especially in indoor and mobile situation. This product is excellent if you live in an apartment or a shared home where playing a regular horn is simply not possible you can still practice and the key placement is very close to that of a real horn bravo Yamaha. However it would be great to see a functional octave key instead of a butt and to be able to growl but that's for that'll probably cost you a lot more money so I'll leave it with this. The playability is very good the keys feel very realistic of course it is not going to take into account the pressure and or the speed at which the key is pressed. This is a great value for the money especially seeing as it is only two of its kind in the horn world. It would be great if the model has a rechargeable battery and the ability to attach an angled neck to the horn. Yamaha is known for its great products great craftsmanship good value for the money and thoughtful design the function of this product holds up to the Yamaha brand reputation and leaves little more to be desired for the price point.

For the price I expected more, and not having Bluetooth is a big problem when studying.

After 50 plus years of playing alto and tenor sax, I had to all but give it up in the past few years due to asthma, breathing issues and arthritis in my fingers as well as moving to a smaller apartment with lots of neighbors. I have previously tried an Akai EWI which was much more expensive than the Yamaha and I hated it. Akai tries to make their unit adaptable for all woodwind players (not just sax players like me), so the layout with sensors was difficult, the learning curve was high and the sounds were terrible. However, the Yamaha YDS-120 is a godsend for me. Is it the same as playing my beloved Selmer? No, especially from an embouchure perspective. However, it is set up just like an analog sax with the same keys instead of sensors. It takes very little breath and it's easy on my hands even when playing fast passages. The onboard sounds are OK coming through the tiny speaker on the bottom, but are much better with headphones. I use the headphone out jack with an adapter to run it into my Fosusrite audio interface and DAW in my home studio and with a little bit of tweaking the sound is superb! The breath sensitivity is very good though it takes a little practice to get used to the finer control features like subtle pitch bend and vibrato. The downloadable app helps with these settings, though you have to provide your own micro-USB cables to interface with your phone. The unit is all plastic but seems well made as all Yamaha products I have bought in the past have been. There are hard cases available but my gigging days are long over so not a problem for me. These are minor limitations compared to the fact that I can enjoy playing the sax again. For $450 It feels like getting a part of my life back. Thank you Yamaha!

I liked the instrument but it stopped working. I would not recommend purchasing this instrument, Stick with the traditional non digital saxophone.

I purchased a Yamaha YDS-120 digital saxophone a few months ago as a retirement gift. It is one of the most affordable digital saxes available with a sound that I would call "sax adjacent." However, it is easier to play than an actual saxophone and has a lot of different sax "voices" for soprano, alto, tenor, and baritone saxes. For a retired hobbyist like me, it is perfect. It is fun to play and close enough to a real sax for me. I do have a real alto sax that I have played for decades, but I am finding it harder to keep my embouchure without my mouth hurting. For my digital sax , I just need to blow into it like recorder. Many of the digital "voices" have vibrato built into them which is great for a vibrato lover such as myself. The voice sensor is fine at sensing different types of attack on notes. As with most digital saxes, the key responsiveness can be a bit slow. I have adjusted the appropriate settings on the digital sax to get the fastest response it is capable of. Of course, at my age my fingers are slower than they used to be! Perhaps the best feature of the digital sax is the ability to accept a headset so that I do not bother my wife or neighbors when I play. I have been aware of digital saxes since their introduction in the 1970's. I am happy that the price point has come down so much in the last couple decades that I can finally afford one.