Yamaha

Showing all 18 results

  • Yamaha YAS-23 Alto Saxophone Best Student Sax 265493A

    $ 800

  • Yamaha YAS-23 Alto Saxophone Best Student Sax 265727A

    $ 800

  • Yamaha YAS-475 Alto Saxophone Great Student Option – Just Serviced!

    $ 1,299

    New photos coming in a few days. This 475 alto now looks almost brand new! It got a thorough tune up, complete disassemble and clean up, several new pads, and is now playing really well. It feels almost brand new under the fingers, and the setup is better than new. Great option for a solid alto saxophone for someone!!

  • Yamaha YAS-62 Professional Alto Saxophone Fresh Overhaul!

    $ 2,350

    Completely overhauled YAS-62 in top playing condition! I had to raise the price because I spent $900 on a great overhaul on this. It now has all new everything!

  • Yamaha YAS-82ZULPW Rare Unlacquered “Hand Selected by Phil Woods” with Signed Paperwork

    $ 5,900
  • Sold Out

    Yamaha YAS-875 Custom Alto Professional – Fresh Overhaul!

    $ 3,150
  • Sold Out

    Yamaha YAS-875EXB Alto Saxophone Black Lacquer Plays Great! C86433

    $ 3,350

    This beautiful Yamaha Custom EX alto just got a thorough tune up including disassembly, cleaning, oil, and a bunch of new pads, and now it’s looking and playing its best! You seldom see Yamaha 875EX altos in special ordered black lacquer, but you should. It’s one of Yamaha’s most beautiful finishes. The ‘honest’ two tone look from the engraving cuts through the black lacquer is striking and gorgeous.

    The main reason to buy a YAS-875EX is, of course, the tone and ease of playing that it offers. No other modern alto tunes as precisely or is so effortless to play in ensemble work. It’s almost like autopilot for sax. If you’ve been struggling to hold pitch on a cheap beginner or intermediate horn for years, you may be startled to find that your habits of correcting pitch are now entirely unnecessary. It just plays in tune. I’m dwelling on that, I know, but both on the alto and soprano EX models, that’s the most striking thing. The tone itself is medium between bright and dark. Brighter than the original Custom 875 model, which I also have available at the moment. The EX darkens down with a classical mouthpiece, or brightens up with a higher baffle, smaller chamber mouthpiece. The tone is not very complex, but is round and clear and projects easily. If you want to play concert, classical, or projecting commercial music, the crisp, clear tone is ideal for working with. If you’re playing smoky jazz ballads, you’ll need an interesting sounding mouthpiece to warm up the sound a bit, or just get a Conn 🙂

    Only one available! This is a great deal on an effortless and beautiful Yamaha Custom alto!

  • Yamaha YDS-150 Digital Saxophone

    Yamaha YDS-150 Digital Saxophone – In Stock again Soon

    $ 799

    The Yamaha YDS-150 Digital Saxophone is currently out of stock as of May 26, 2021, for a little while. Buy your Yamaha YDS-150 Digital Saxophone on back order now to be first in line, and support a small saxophone shop at the same time!

    The Yamaha YDS-150 Digital Saxophone is a new kind of digital saxophone. It is more like a real saxophone than any digital saxophone that has come before, because it has regular saxophone keywork. So unlike an EWI 4000S, 5000, or a WX5, you don’t have to switch to a different keywork feel in order to play the digital saxophone anymore.

    This is going to be huge for people who want to practice saxophone quietly rather than people who just want a midi or digital interface sax. You can practice with headphones on and not bother your neighbors at all hours. Or play it quietly on one of the 15 volume settings. The Yamaha YDS-150 Digital Saxophone also works fine as a digital input into whatever sound processing software that you want to use. But it feels more like a regular saxophone under the fingers. I’ve been having fun with digital saxophones ever since the Casio DH-100, and I think like the Casio, this Yamaha YDS-150 Digital Saxophone will probably become an instant classic of its genre for the same reason – it feels more like an actual saxophone to play than any similar option.

    In brief (more below) are the main features of the Yamaha YDS-150 Digital Saxophone that you might care about:

    1. The Yamaha Yamaha YDS-150 Digital Saxophone has a speaker in the brass bell, so that the sound you generate vibrates the instrument’s body tube. As you play louder, you feel more resonance.
    2. The Yamaha YDS-150 Digital Saxophone has a regular saxophone mouthpiece (basically a repurposed Yamaha 4C soprano piece) and even a ‘reed’ so that it feels like a saxophone in your mouth also. The reed doesn’t vibrate though! You can even swap out the Yamaha mouthpiece for your own mouthpiece, as long as it has a similar bore to a 4C, though this won’t do much to the tone if anything. It might make it feel a little more like ‘home’ to you.
    3. The Yamaha YDS-150 Digital Saxophone has an advanced breath sensor that responds instantly to small changes in breath support by changing the tone that you generate. Again, you see the theme – feels a bit more like a saxophone to play.
    4. The sound it generates is actual sound samples taken from real Yamaha saxophones. You can switch among Yamaha soprano, alto, tenor, and baritone tones on your Yamaha YDS-150 Digital Saxophone. It’s a pretty good idea, thought it still sounds like a midi sax to me. The bari sax model is actually pretty good though.
    5. There’s an app that lets you further modify and control the tone you get from the Yamaha YDS-150 Digital Saxophone. The app is actually quite good! And you can also input the sound from your Yamaha YDS-150 Digital Saxophone into Ableton or Garageband or ProTools or whatever you like and modify it there, or even run the output into analog or digital pedals, like in our saxophone looping video here.
    6. Interestingly it’s keyed from high F# down to low A so you can use it as a baritone model! And the tuning is adjustable within 5 hz so you can play with a flat piano or in different temperatures with acoustic instruments whose tuning changes with changing weather etc. Not a bad idea!

    Shortcomings of the YDS-150 are as follows:

    1. It’s a bit awkward changing notes with the digital switches on the keys versus the analog feel of a real sax.
    2. Similarly, starting and stopping notes with breath is different from how you articulate them on a real sax. So playing four quarter notes staccato requires you to learn habits that don’t transfer to sax.
    3. Reed doesn’t vibrate, so it doesn’t really feel like a saxophone to play.
    4. Saxophone sound samples don’t sound all that much like a saxophone. See our A/B comparison video for comparison of a Yamaha custom alto vs the YDS-150 alto sound model.
    5. No vibrato or control of tone with embouchure – breath only.

    I’ll put more Yamaha YDS-150 Digital Saxophone details and some review videos and sound clips in the long description below, so scroll down for the additional info! And for only $799, it’s not bad even just as a tool to get some late night practice time in.

  • YSS82ZRSSopranoStockPhotos-3

    Yamaha YSS-82ZRS Soprano Saxophone One Piece Bent Neck Silver Plate! BRAND NEW

    $ 4,750

    Available new by special order anytime. Email me at [email protected] to order. The Yamaha YSS-62R and 62RS are the most desirable vintage sopranos pretty much. Yamaha made an upgraded reissue of this soprano, with improved keywork but the same bore. It’s simply the best.

  • Yamaha YTS-52 Tenor Saxophone 1980’s Fresh Overhaul Excellent Condition 5474

    $ 2,350

    This early 1980’s Yamaha 52 tenor is hard to beat for the price. The 80’s ‘purple logo’ 62 saxophones are prized for their warm, more complex tone, and they are among my favorite modern saxophones. The 52 from the same era is virtually the identical saxophone, with the same bore, neck, body tube and everything. It lacks a few higher end features that the 62 has (the ‘fat starfish’ engraving, ribs under some posts), but these don’t matter to most people, so it remains an excellent value. You get all the tone, comfortable ergonomics, dependability and ease of playing of a 62 for less money. Plus, this tenor just got a complete overhaul and is all freshly repadded and ready to go for a nice long time. It won’t need anything more than minor upkeep for the next several years, and it is super easy and responsive across all registers.

    It can be hard to find a tenor that plays this well for anything like this price. And Yamahas like this are also really easy to get worked on down the road and to keep in good adjustment. Compared to later Yamahas, this one is warmer, more complex, and more like a vintage Selmer (which was Yamaha’s starting point for the early 62 it seems to me), but with better intonation and a more even scale. No wonder these continue to be such popular saxophones.

    Only one available!

  • Yamaha YTS-62 1 Tenor 33267 Good Condition Plays Well!

    $ 2,450
  • Sold Out

    Yamaha YTS-62 Professional Tenor Saxophone Very Good Condition 45358

    $ 2,650

  • Yamaha YTS-62 Tenor Very Good Condition Plays Great! 42244

    $ 2,450

    Nice professional Yamaha 62 tenor saxophone in great shape. It was just tuned up, and plays very well. The price is as good as you can get for a professional tenor in good playing condition. The Yamaha is probably the most commonly recommended first good tenor saxophone in the world.

  • Yamaha YTS-62II Tenor Saxophone Great Deal

    $ 2,250

  • Yamaha YTS-62III Tenor Saxophone Near Mint Condition

    $ 2,750

  • Yamaha YTS-82ZS Silver Custom tenor Excellent Condition Plays Great!

    $ 3,500