Jones JR201AMS Artist Bassoon Reed; Medium Soft

I have purchased four reeds from this brand, mainly to review the overall quality. The cliff note version - my reed-making skills are rusty at best after over a seven-year reprieve. I bought these to get my chops back in shape on the cheap before investing the sun and moon in making my own reeds again. After four purchases, the quality is all over the place. This reed (purchased January 2021) won't play any upper register without popping a blood vessel. The last purchase (December 2020) wasn't scored properly. Yes, I can tweak these reeds to make them better, but my comment is for those beginners out there. If this is your chosen brand, take courage. Jones used to be good for consistency; they may have not been top-quality, but you could rely on them to be consistently middle-of-the-road. I'm not sure what happened, but purchase at your own risk.

My daughter is a middle school beginning bassoon player. These reeds were economical and a good place to start for her. Now that she's at the tail end of her first year, we have started purchasing higher quality handmade reeds from a speciality woodwinds website for about twice the cost. The sound is much better, but for someone just starting out, the less expensive reeds are perfectly fine.

My daughter has been playing bassoon for 2 years, she always used the Jones medium soft (with the red thread), our local music store was out of them and had these on hand, they referred to them as the “artist,” version. We weren’t sure what that meant, but my daughter will not go back to the red thread reeds. These last much longer and have a better sound quality. We purchased them from Amazon when stores were closed, but have found that our local music store sells them for $15.99/ea.

My son has been playing bassoon for about 4 years and usually uses the red Jones medium-soft. I bought the purple Jones Artist medium reed hoping it would be a better reed for him. He said that this medium reed was softer than the lower level medium soft and pretty much useless to him. Almost $20 in the garbage, he went back to the less expensive, lower level reed.

This reed stands out in the crowd of store-bought bassoon reeds. The cane is high quality and the reeds have a beautiful tone. The intonation is a bit flat on my bassoon (particularly the c-sharp and e in the staff), so I had to end up clipping the tip a bit to get the pitch right, but that was an easy fix. Compared to other commercial reeds I have tried, these are much better. I have yet to find a manufactured reed that requires little or no work out of the box, but these reeds are quite good. I am a professional bassoonist and I recommend these to my students. And they are American-made. Nice work, Jones!

My daughter has only been playing bassoon for a few months. It may be a while yet before she's carving any of her own reeds. But honestly, hearing her play, I can't understand why anyone needs to carve reeds. She has the most beautiful tone with the reeds she's buying from Amazon. I'm not just saying this because I'm her mom. She's made it into the top of four bands in her school (after three months of playing!); she's won the highest praise at competitions. I mean, judges actually tell her her tone is that of musicians who've been playing for years. Maybe those pros need to stop carving their own reeds and buy these ones.

I have started out playing bassoon on the regular Jones reeds, they give me the best pitch, control, and feedback. After going through a mid-life crisis but for reeds, I checked out many other brands to see if there were any other reeds that were superior. I couldn't find any, except for the Jones Artist reeds, the artist reeds are different in that they seem to be pre-adjusted, and have better quality cane than the regular reeds. I cannot recommend any other reed than the Jones reeds.

My son just learned how to make his own reeds. This reed is machine manufactured and not tailored to his embouchure. Acceptable alternative until he perfects his craftsmanship.

Perhaps the finest pre-made reed I’ve ever bought. Required only very minor adjustments (none of the usual heroics and intervention needed by most others I’ve had). Will be back for more!

Bought for granddaughter