Jones JR201AM Artist Bassoon Reed; Medium

My daughter received this for her bassoon. She has had no problems with cracking. This is a great quality reed. It provides good quality sound and is sturdy.

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.

I've been using Jones Artist reeds for about 5 years now, and I love them so much. They're easy to break in, and very manageable with tools and whatnot. I love their sound and durability, they last longer than some of my other reeds from other brands. Also less likely to have faulty reeds come in with these.

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 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 tried to play with this reed and it falls off of her bassoon. We are going back to the other brand, never had an isuse

Very solid purchase! The reeds are the best that I've ever played on in my bassoon playing career. These reeds are very cost efficient and they still have out performed more expensive reeds that I've purchased in the past. I'm in the group that experienced intonation on the little flat side but, with some minor adjustments to the reed, the problem was solved. I would recommend these reeds to any beginner or professional player. I am very satisfied with my purchase!

Great reed for bassoon.