Yamaha Soprano Saxophone, YDS-120

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

First, I will say that this is a great practice instrument and midi controller! It’s great that you can play through headphones and with certain wireless guitar adapters (3.5mm types with 1/4”) you can easily run into a mixer or practice speaker. Using the usb mini connector with the appropriate cable adapters, I can hear SWARM instruments from my iPad out through the headphones. The secret to getting the best sounds are through the free Yamaha App to control and change parameters and save them in your user menu to easily switch between later. Although it has a small speaker, it does not do justice to the sound capabilities of this instrument. The non-Japanese YouTubers are guilty of recording the little speaker and it does not sound very good. If that’s your point of reference, you are in for a very pleasant surprise with headphones or direct connection! Now, with that said, my biggest issue is in how the upper octave key works. It is a very sensitive on/off switch that can easily disengage at the wrong time. As the YDS-120 is a lighter than my proper soprano, it seems to be a struggle for me to keep it engaged while going for high C# unless I am using the neck strap as leverage. I really hope that the next generation of these instruments have an improved version of this button soon. I would love to use it in a live performance as it can create very realistic saxophones and other instruments and save me from carrying my tenor, alto, and soprano when you can just click between them. Midnight saxophone practice is a great use after work or after late night inspiration.

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 bought this for quiet practice and travel. I have however used the YDS 20 to play out professionally twice; supplementing the YDS 20 here and there with my saxophone. People seem to really like it. The simplicity is really nice. I look forward to playing it. You can find some favorite sounds. I was able to go onto the app and change the keys of some of my preferred Baritone and Alto sax settings from the key of Eb to Bb which is great for me as a tenor player as I like some of the bari sax sounds. The keys are very sax like; no learning curve. The price is great. This is over all a fun instrument to own and practice. The one change I made was I found a Yamaha mouthpiece and reed for the YDS 50 sold by another retailer. I don't really like the recorder style mouthpiece and like the feel of a real sax mouthpiece and reed. AA real game changer for quiet practice. Thank you Yamaha!

Feels and sounds like a finely made instrument. My issue is that it does not support a wireless connection. It unfortunately gets many reviews that get mixed between models and the features are a bit confusing. For someone who doesn’t need a wireless amp connection , it would be great.

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.