Comments on: Stuart Dunkel

By: oboeplayer7

oboeplayer7 — Sat, 09 Apr 2011 19:30:33 +0000

I used to love Stuart’s reeds untill about last spring, I kept getting poorly made reeds(I think he is letting his students do too much of the making…) so I tried Joe Halko (another MA reedmaker) and loved them!

By: Paul Hartl

Paul Hartl — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 02:32:11 +0000

Some good ones, but I have not seen much consistency from those that I have received from Dunkel in the last year – too many, more than half – have been junk.

By: taylorswift13

taylorswift13 — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 00:12:47 +0000

These reeds really have been terrible lately. I used them for most of 09 and they started out fine, a little flat but easily fixable, and towards the end of that year they steadily declined. The last three I bought were basically unplayable. They’re so flat, and no matter what you do to adjust them they still become closed and impossible to create music with. They barely vibrate at all at some points and have a thin puny sound. I’ve had some really great reeds come from SD earlier in the year, but I won’t buy from them again because the quality really suffers now, maybe the cane they use isn’t the best anymore? The reeds aren’t reliable AT ALL, but maybe you can get a decent one once every 6 months, if you’re lucky. SD used to be good but now it’s just extremely frustrating.

By: shananh

shananh — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 01:27:05 +0000

This reed gets too stiff to even play after a while. Then, when you fix it, it plays really well for a week or so, and then it gets really stiff again. When it’s fixed well, it plays so good and I sounded stupendous, but than it becomes impossable to play.

It’s too bad, theese used to be good reeds.

Don’t buy these, they become impossable

By: CoachSue

CoachSue — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 19:58:17 +0000

A good 10 years ago, I had a student who used SD reeds, so a number of my students began to use them, too. I always found that they needed some adjustment to play their best, not good for for one who doesn’t know how. I also figured out pretty early on that very few of them are made by Dunkel. He subcontracts to a number of oboists in his area, requiring them to be made to his standards. However, as everyone’s handwriting is different, so is their knife technique. I found major quality control problems regardless of whether reeds were purchased through WWBW or directly from Dunkel. For a few years, I bought them for my students and adjusted them individually. However, too many reeds were unsalvageable, and it wasn’t worth the money, since I didn’t charge for my time spent re-making the reeds. Even after communication directly with Dunkel, I stopped purchasing them. I’m sure some are good for some players, but too inconsistent for me to deal with adjusting and re-selling them to my students.

By: dd

dd — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 16:54:33 +0000

When I began oboe, I thought that I didn’t sound well because I didn’t know what I was doing.

Then, I got a soft reed (can’t remember which brand) and realized I could play, but I sounded like a duck and I could not get it to be in tune with the rest of the band.

Then I bought two Jones reeds. One would stay in tune, the other wouldn’t. I still sounded like a duck (but, at least a duck that was in tune) .

Then I bought Stuart Dunkel. My band leader told me “Oh – you sound great. You must have really practiced.” I tried to tell her that it was the reed, but she didn’t think so (She did not know much about the oboe). I bought four of them so far, and only one seemed to have a little problem.

Maybe I could fix the problem if I scraped it – but I have no idea how to do that.
I will probably by these for a long time.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 19:01:42 +0000

I find Stuart Dunkel reeds OKAY, but I usually have to scrape on them and only use them when I really need them.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 16:51:02 +0000

I enjoyed Stuart’s reeds for about 5 years and over the past 6 months+ they have deteriorated. There are some that cannot even be played they are so flat. Some leak and the sound has become ducky. Very disappointing.

By: oudblreeder

oudblreeder — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 20:02:10 +0000

I do not know what has happend to SD reeds. I have used them for almost 18 years and have been recommending them to my students. They have been selling student reeds at a great price through WWBW.com. Recently the prices went up and the quality went down. I am sure Stuart must be outsourcing as the demand for his reeds went up. But I have seen at least 12 SD reeds recently that didn’t look like they were made with the same method much less the same person. Very dissapointing. Guess I’ll have to start looking elsewhere for good student and backup reeds

By: oboist

oboist — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 01:36:39 +0000

I usually order the medium reeds. These reeds are usually a little stiff the first time I play them. After that, they are really great, plus they usually last longer than most others I have used. After an hour of practicing, they seem to break in and have a NICE dark tone with a stable pitch in the high notes. Definitely recommend! (For my students, I ask them to made the reeds soft strength because the med-soft are too hard for them).