Roland AE-05 Aerophone GO Digital Wind Instrument, Graphite

what am amazing musical tool. it bonds with your soul and what you create has no limit.

I have a regular sax, but my wind and embouchure aren't what they used to be and it's hard for me to play it. The Aerophone lets you choose how hard you need to blow - nice! The voices are tinny using the built-in speaker, of course, but hooked up to an amplifier they are very satisfying. Love them all - nice sax sound, excellent clarinet, breathy flute and very resonating violin. Love the unit!

The Aerophone AE-05, or "Aerophone GO" is the beginner/budget model of the AE-10, which was released a year or so earlier. I don't own an AE-10, so I won't be making many comparisons with it. Alistair Parnell has a YouTube video that makes such comparisons, and is also producing a series of videos on the AE-05, in which he gets into the details of how to get the most out of the AE-05. These are highly recommended. In this review I'll try to focus on the things that a prospective buyer might want to know, some of which are not easily discovered online.1. The Sounds. As the product description says, there are eleven on-board sounds (four saxes, flute, clarinet, violin, mute trumpet, "saw lead" (a synth sound), "square lead" (a higher synth sound), and "percussion", which is a palette of percussion sounds assigned to note fingerings. There are about three diatonic octaves of percussion sounds, so about 24 in all. The sounds are generated by an internal PCM synth. On the AE-10, Roland's "Supernatural" synth is used. This is my first foray into synths of any kind, so I won't pretend any expertise. Suffice it to say that the Supernatural sounds simply sound better, if YouTube videos and owner opinions are any indication. That's not to say that the sounds of the AE-05 are *bad*, only that they are not the best. In my personal opinion, the bari sax is the best of the sax sounds, and the soprano sax is the worst--although it can pass for a decent harmonica. The flute sound is decent, except in the bottom octave, which would correspond to the first octave on an actual flute. The clarinet is fair; the violin isn't too bad. The muted trumpet is pretty good.Note that all of these sounds are rubbish when played on the built-in speaker on the instrument itself. That speaker is nice to have for practice, but in terms of sound quality it's worse than the old Casio horns from the 1980s. To play the AE-05 for other people you'll need a decent speaker or amp, and to play it for your own enjoyment you'll need headphones.Note that you cannot use bluetooth to connect to headphones or speakers; you must use an aux cable.2. Fingering. The AE-05 supports sax fingering out of the box, and other fingering systems choosable. The buttons are responsive enough, even for playing fast ornaments, though not as fast as what I'd do on a tin whistle. But then, a standard sax isn't ideal for that kind of ornamentation either. The fingering includes harmonics/altissimo. There are two octave keys, the expected up octave and an additional down octave. As a sax player, it took me a while to get used to the down octave key, but it's good to have, once you get used to it.I should mention that "crossing the octaves" is a bit tricky, due to the tendency to leak a note in the wrong octave if your timing is a bit off. It's just a bit less forgiving than a regular sax, so you have to work on it. In compensation, though, there's octave overlap in the form of the pinky keys. That is, you can play "middle C" (and B, and Bb) either at the top of once octave or the bottom of the next. The provides some useful flexibility.3. Note bending. There are two ways to bend notes. One is to use bite control, similar to the way it's done on an acoustic sax or other reed instrument. To use this, the "bite control" switch must be turned on. You may need to fiddle with the settings to get it to work the way you want it to. Out of the box, I found that I had to clench my embouchure way to hard (for me) just to *avoid* bending.But here's a point I want to make clear. Note bending using bite control is pretty much an on/off thing. You really can't control the *rate* of pitch change. For this reason, you probably want to set the "pitch down" to a value that isn't too exaggerated, unless that's what you're into. And here's the other thing: If you want to use bite control for vibrato, you'll need to set "pitch down" to a rather low value, to avoid an exaggerated, operatic vibrato. You can't change that as you play. Personally, I like about a semitone for note bending, but that's too much for vibrato, so I don't (can't) use bite control for vibrato. I use diaphragm vibrato, which works better for some sounds than others. The bottom line is: You do *not* have the kind of control that you have with an actual reed.There is another way to do note bending. There is a button next to the right thumb rest that bends the pitch down. You might decide to work with this for note bending, and optimize bite control for vibrato. I'm experimenting with this, but there is one serious problem: I have large hands and the space where the thumb must rest, between the thumb rest and the battery cover, is too narrow for me. This makes it very hard for me to slide my thumb in far enough to reach the button, without having to tilt it, which interferes with my fingering. Consequently, I haven't been able to make much use of that button. Your thumb may be more slender than mine, but just be aware.4. The App. There is a mobile app for the AE-05, called "Aerophone GO," appropriately enough. Actually, there's more than one app, but I'm just going to talk about this one. This app connects your AE-05 to your Apple or Android mobile device via Bluetooth. It's by means of this app that you can drill down into settings to change bite control sensitivity and similar things. A few basic settings are on the instrument itself, but for the more advanced stuff you need the app.In addition, there are some 50 additional sounds available on the app. Some of them are alternate versions of the onboard sounds on the instrument, but they do seem to sound better than those onboard sounds. But here's what you need to understand about them. To play these sounds, you must turn the volume on your AE-05 down to zero, because if you don't you'll continue playing the onboard sounds. What's happening is, you're using the app as an alternate synth, in addition to the one on the instrument. That alternate synth has its own sound palette. I don't know if this is the "Supernatural" software or something else; I only know that the quality of the sounds is better.But when you play these sounds, your "speaker" is your phone! The sound comes from your phone, until you send it out to headphones or speaker.This is where things get a bit dodgy. As far as I can tell, the various video demos of the app on YouTube are all done using Apple equipment: iPhones and iPads. My mobile device is an Android OnePlus 6T. I also have an LG G6. When you connect to the Android app via Bluetooth, you see a warning, namely that if you experience latency you should connect via USB cable instead. The AE-05 package includes such cable, for Apple, micro-USB, and USB-C. The problem is, on Android it simply doesn't work. That is, when I connect the AE-05 to the phone using the cable, nothing happens. The phone doesn't detect the instrument in any way. I can't say that this affects all Android phones, but it affects the two that I own, both with recent installations of Android. I've also found complaints about this at various online forums, so it's not just me.This is a serious problem because there is, in fact, serious latency in the Bluetooth connection--enough to make it useless for playing purposes. So if you hoped to perform using those higher quality sounds in the app, that's not going to happen unless you have Apple equipment (which I haven't tested, but I'm not seeing any reported problems). In short, as it currently is, the AE-05 should be considered an Apple-only instrument, at least to take full advantage of its advertised features.I'd like to point out that it's possible that the Android USB problem may be corrected in a future software update by Roland. I'm hoping so. The instrument software has already been updated once (you use the app for this, too), and of course the app may also be updated. So maybe they'll get everything working for Android users. But I haven't see anything official from them about this.Finally, it's a bit puzzling, and frustrating, that Roland chose to install the lesser sounds on the instrument. I realize they wanted to keep costs down, so the number of sounds installable needed to be limited, compared to the AE-10. In my opinion, a more reasonable solution would be to let the user choose 11 sounds to download from the app to the instrument. Maybe this can be done in an update (But I doubt it, since the 11 onboard sounds are physically printed on the battery cover, suggesting they're not up for changes).This is a long review, but as I said, I wanted to cover some of the things I was curious about before buying the AE-05. I don't regret the purchase, but I'd like to help others to make an informed decision.

Plastic sound all over arround like a toy for 3 years old.

I'll be honest: I'm surprised I like this so much. As a 10-year sax player living in a studio apartment, I was missing the ability to play my horn whenever I wanted. Mutes are heavy and spacious -- and at the end of the day not the experience I wanted. The Aerophone's sax-emulation with headphones is magical. I use the tenor sound, but you may choose between Alto, baritone, soprano, and an assortment of other instruments. I find it satisfies my desire to maintain practice while also allowing my partner to read or watch a video next to me. When I'm not using it, it just sits in the case that it comes with.Note that you'll need a headphone-jack size converter for the audio-output if you want to use your everyday headphones. Check out the description for the specifics.

Although the instrument works perfectly fine as it was designed, it is that very issue that I have difficulties wrapping my head around. I have long since been a rabid supporter of just about any product that Roland comes up with, mainly due to the fact that Roland usually incorporates a a very performer-centric philosophy when designing their products (unlike an unnamed other Japanese brand which begins with the letter “Y” that creates products that are made primarily for the ease of their design teams and production facilities rather than the performer). Taking all of this under consideration, certain aspects of this particular product have baffled me. First, if this is supposed to be a digital avatar of an actual saxophone, why not just incorporate ALL the standard keys of a saxophone. I guess what I’m saying is “Where is the F#/Gb key Chelios”? Sure, it has has # and a b key but in many cases you’d have to have a second index finger to use them, the placement of these keys would have been more effective right by the octave keys on the left hand. For that matter, why octave keys in the first place? It would have been easier for sax players if they would’ve just used the same keys as a standard saxophone. Secondly, a bend BUTTON? Seriously? How hard would it have been to use a miniature spring-loaded wheel center oriented, right beside the right hand thumb hook. A miniature mod-wheel right next to it would have been great too. Lastly, I know my Blues, R&B, and Rock brethren out there are wondering why no oversqueek, or growl buttons? And that in short, is why I can only give three stars to the product.

Really Amazing product !! I strong reccomend for beginners and intermediate players. I love the mobility to play where you are and independently of the time using headphones. For me that usually at night have time to play, it is a no-disturb impact way to train, even I have my own Yamaha sax tenor to play. Thanks Amazon for the very high-speed delivery !!! Five stars !!!!

Was very excited about this but instantly hated it and returned it. The sound is really bad. As others have said it sounds like a cheap Casio keyboard from the 80s. Nothing like a real sax. It’s also a pain to use. Huge latency issues with Bluetooth and loads of wires to be convenient without. Also the fingering just doesn't feel like a sax nor does the reed. I guess I might have been expecting too much but I think I’d rather just get a curved soprano as a travel sax