Jones JR101AM Artist Oboe Reed; Medium

I'm an amateur oboist - I play in a local quartet and a symphonic band ensemble, occasionally in orchestras or larger projects. My practice is light; maybe 3-4 times a week, 1-2 hours at a time. These reeds last for months and are ready to play and broken in within the first hour of practice. Consistently great tone. I don't know what kind of superbamboo these are made of, but they don't fray or crack or chip. I soak in regular water before playing, and store in an aerated reed case. I'm on my third of these and have been using my current one for a shocking 9 months. I can still hit my full range of notes, my full range of dynamics. In month 9 here, it's starting to go a little sharp on me and the lowest notes are getting harder to attack, so I'm about ready to move on to the backup I've already bought of these. Highly recommended if your practice and your budget are like mine. I appreciate not having to replace it after 2-3 weeks, like local hand-made reeds, and the longevity is blowing me away - or rather I am ;-).

My 12-year-old son has been playing oboe for around two years and his tone has been improving but he had reached a plateau. He had been using Jones medium-soft reeds, just the base model. But we switched up to the medium-hard and Artist series and we can really hear an improvement in tone. He is struggling with the airflow a little with the harder reed but we think that will improve with practice.We would not recommend this reed for a beginner player, start off with a softer reed. But as you reach a plateau, don't be afraid to move up to a hard, more quality reed.It is a few dollars more but worth the price.Now that he is comfortable with it I will be buying some spares...

This was our first foray into the "Jones JR101AM Artist Oboe Reed; Medium" as opposed to our usual "Jones JR101M Oboe Reed; Medium" purchases. Although the old standby red string JR101M reeds have been perfectly adequate for playing in most situations, they do require quite a bit of scraping and tweaking to get them really playable.This JR101AM reed was already scraped very well. It saved a significant amount of time as it did not require that much touch up to get it where we really like it to be. It is also obvious that it was scraped by someone with significant skill.As improving skills in scraping is critical to progress in our use of the Oboe, we will be buying the occasional JR101M in the hopes that one day our scraping skills approach those at Jones when they produce the Artist series reeds.Needless to say, we have found that the Jones JR101AM are well worth the 30% higher price. Right out of the box these reeds are scraped well enough to be playable in most situations. With minimal tweaking they are ready for on-stage performance. We have found our new reed of choice.

All reeds are different. But for this one, it was tough to get a good sound through at the beginning, then it got better but still sounded quite airy. It lasted for a little over a week.

Jones makes wonderful oboe reeds. However, I think that the Amazon reseller that Amazon chose under the Amazon fulfillment option to send me one of the Jones Artist medium-hard reeds may have damaged it somehow during shipping and handling. It barely played at all upon arrival. EVERY OTHER Jones reed I have purchased, both the Jones standard reeds and the Jones Artist reeds, played well upon arrival, and I highly recommend them. I give Jones Oboe Reeds FIVE STARS, but I give Amazon.com Fulfillment ZERO STARS (which is unusual, since Amazon's fulfillment is usually bulletproof). The other possibility is that the Jones Artist medium-hard reed is truly meant ONLY for artists, which means that any artist would do additional scraping on the reed before playing it. By contrast, the standard Jones reeds (which cost less than the Artist series), including the medium-soft, medium, and medium-hard strength reeds, play extremely well out-of-the-box without the need for any additional shaving. So, in the future, I am going to stick to the Jones standard reeds and leave the Jones Artist series reeds to the pros who know how to shave them as needed.

Always a beautiful tone from a Jones. I haven't played in 12 years and bought this Med strength. Wow! The tone is solid and strong but sweet Jesus! I had to soak him a little longer than Inused to (10 mins) to be able to warm him up on account of my lips and embouchure not being what they were. The extra soak was good. Plus its firm enough that when my husband (who has never played) decided to try to buzz and pushed it THROUGH HIS CLOSED LIPS, it's still fine 😅 Good choice all around but soak a little longer if you're new/returning to the music.

Love the reed - tone is nice, and pitch is even and easy to control. I give it 5 stars in general for playability. This reed seems little harder than the typical medium-soft reeds that I have had in the past, but it's definitely playable if you know what you are doing.Background - NYSSMA Level 6 soloist and All-County player in high school, played principal in one of the ensembles at SUNY Fredonia and played in the wind quintet. Getting back into playing for the first time in about 8 years or so, so I'm going with Medium-Soft reeds.

Inconsistent...I tried other Jones reeds in the past and they were buzzy with no center--hard to control or have a good tone. This one was really good after I worked on the tip a bit with my reed knife, because it was not finished on the tip and was too resistant. It has a slightly brighter sound than the locally handmade reeds I buy, but still very good as a backup reed. I'll be buying these as good backup reeds because of the easy and quick availability on Amazon. ****The first reed I bought was good with some adjustment. I just bought a second and it is not good even with adjustment. These reeds are actually o.k. if you have no locally made reed source but with a locally made reed you can get a refund or replacement reed much more easily for the same price.

Buen producto

Good quality reeds, but be prepared to do some scraping and adjusting yourself. I bought two mediums, one is too resistant for me and the other is slightly leaking from the sides. Nothing that can’t be fixed though.

Good reed. Intonation was good. Played well through range of instrument. Will order again.

Although I can get the reed to work and produce full bodied notes, it is only after working with the reeds alignment each time. The reed is glued together at the string so it will not retain any changes for any period of time. Not what I was hoping for.

J'en commanderai d'autres.