Travel Sax 2 Review After 1 Year of Playing

It’s been a little over a year since I first got my Travel Sax 2 and made a review video for it. So today, I’m going to tell you what my experience has been like using this thing for the last 15 months or so.

99% of my use for this thing for me has been while traveling. It normally lives somewhere on my desk and I will often grab it to quickly transpose something if I don’t have a real saxophone setup and ready to play.

If, however, I wasn’t able to practice at any hour in my sound isolated studio, I would definitely use this just for practicing when I don’t want to bother anyone.

Traveling with the Travel Sax 2

I’m just going to show you how I typically use the Travel Sax2 when I’m in a hotel room and can’t play a real saxophone. While traveling, I might not bring a laptop with me a but I’ll always have my phone.

This is what I love about the Travel Sax2, the only accessory I need is a pair of wired headphones and I can play silently. I connect my phone via bluetooth and then I can hear backing tracks, my metronome app, music I want to transcribe or my ireal pro app.

How I Practice With It

I might practice some technique on this, mainly patterns through the keys. The thing I do the most when I’m traveling with the Travel Sax2 is just play standards for fun.

For example, I’ll put on one of my BetterTrax backing tracks, and just work on melodies to tunes.

I’ll also work on learning the chord changes to tunes. For this I play arpeggios and different chord tone exercises until I really know the harmony and have it memorized.

Once I know a tune really well, I might take my ireal pro app and have it cycle through the keys going up a half step every chorus.

If you have one of these or another wind synth, let us know in the comments how you use it. Do you just practice or do you also perform and record?

Updated Review of the Travel Sax 2

Let’s get into my thoughts on this thing from a review perspective and whether I would recommend it.

First you may notice that I’m using these attachments that extend the length of the Travel Sax2. These make it a lot more comfortable and practical to play so for me, I strongly recommend you get those if and when you purchase it.

I also don’t use a saxophone mouthpiece on this even though you could. It doesn’t really make any sense though since you have no bite control and you’re not going to be helping your embouchure by using a real mouthpiece. The mouthpiece attachment does the job very nicely.

As far as the instrument itself, everything has held up very well. I haven’t had any technical issues, the battery still seems to last as long as I need it to. I doubt I would ever practice long enough to run out of battery.

The case has been very nice. I can pack the whole thing up and have little compartments for my extension accessories as well as the charging cable and it goes right in my suitcase, not taking up too much space. I’ve taken this with me on several trips in the last year or so, and I’ve always used it at least a couple times during those trips.

A couple months ago we went on vacation for a week and I forgot to pack my Travel Sax2 and I really missed it. It’s not that I want to practice all the time, but when traveling you find yourself in a hotel with nothing to do sometimes and it’s a nice way to spend some down time away from a screen.

It’s small, basic and simple and does exactly what it’s supposed to do. I know some people scoff at the price, but if you have the budget to be going on multiple trips and would need something like this, you can probably afford it.

My Recommendation

So after some pretty significant usage over a somewhat long time period I can recommend the Travel Sax2 to anyone who might want to do the same things I use it for.

I’ve got a code for you to help save a bit of money. If you go to the TravelSax website and enter BETTERSAXTS2 you can get the €45 accessory bundle for free when you purchase a Travel Sax, so make sure you take advantage of that.

Now check out my other favorite digital saxophone the EMEO which is also great, but is designed for a somewhat different usage. In an ideal world I would say get both if you had the money, but I know most people will only be getting one of these and I want you to get the instrument that is best for your needs.