 The Fingering Forum
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Author: michael
Date: 2004-09-01 08:50
hey it's michael. if you're frequent at this sight you may remember me in earlier posts talking about piccolo trills, clarinet mouthpieces, legato stuff, music terms, and the oboe. thanks to this site's help, tomorrow i am going to buy an oboe reed. i have gathered that the brands to check out are la voz, chartier, jones (whatever that is), or rico. people have suggested that i get a medium soft. why not start on a soft?? but anyway i guess i'll get the medium soft. how will i know if i'm getting an oboe reed and not a bassoon reed?
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Author: hautbois
Date: 2004-09-01 14:37
a bassoon reed or cor englais reed is obviously much more larger than a oboe reed.
the typical recommended store bought reed for beginners is almost always medium soft....i have played on jones and they seem to work better than the other brands. but still they need quite an amount of adjustment before playing. so it is still the best option to buy any oboe reeds from a professional reed maker or oboe player.
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Author: Theboy_2
Date: 2004-09-01 16:01
an oboe reed is long and straight. a bassoon reed is short and wide. hope this helps.
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Author: Janoboe25
Date: 2004-09-03 23:23
Hey Michael! I've been playing oboe for four years... and personally I would suggest that if all possible that you try to get HANDMADE reeds and NOT store-bought. Handmade reeds produce a much better tone. They may be a little more expensive, but it pays off... trust me. If you just cannot get handmade reeds for some reason, I would go with Jones, medium soft, that's what I started out with. I've heard La Voz isn't that great.
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Author: naila
Date: 2004-09-18 20:26
Hello Michael,
I'm an oboe player who's tried a good number of brands for reeds including: Jones, Meason, Chartier, Rico, LaVoz, Fox, and Marlin Lesher. I had a hard time finding a brand that was right for me but the search had me learn about the different reeds offered.
For me Jones reeds takes much too long to break in and are just plain difficult to play in tune with. Also the reeds are not consistent with eachother. Every now and then I'd be very pleased with a reed and most other times i was just frustrated. Jones reeds were not worth the money for me.
The same goes for Meason except that they are even less consistent.
Chartier reeds are probably the cheapest and worst reeds I have ever tried. The cane is so porous and reminds me of cardboard. The reed doesn't speak well at all.
Ricos are cheap and have a good tone but don't last very long. I started on these and say they are pretty good for beginners.
LaVoz reeds have a very pretty tone. I like them but they take a strange amount of air to play and definitley wouldn't want to begin oboe using them.
Fox Artist oboe reeds are very nice. They are responsive and the most consistent throughout the scale. They also have a good tone. For some reason they take very little time to break in but I wouldn't say it's a bad thing because they last. I would definitely recommend these for beginners as well as intermediates. I love these.
Marlin Lesher reeds are high quality and are really nice. They offer the best tone and are consistent and responsive throughout the scale. They're hand scraped and have a silver tube and still aren't pricey. I love these too.
In my opinion the best brand reeds for a beginner would be Fox or Marlin Lesher in Medium Soft (MS is easier to make a sound on than Medium). I am also confused about why brands even offer Soft reeds when Medium Soft is always recommended for beginners. Anyway, remember this is just my opinion and I don't know everything there is to know about the world of oboe reeds but I hope this really helps you narrow the search for the right reed. Please email me if you have any questions. Happy playing and good luck, Michael!
-Niles
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