It's hard to believe I may have useful information about this, but I used to know a guy from the University of Colorado at Boulder who was getting his master's degree in bassoon performance by day and sneaking out to the physics lab at night to work on machining reed-making equipment. Now he's got a company, http://www.bartoncane.com/, that seems to be way better than mass produced and way cheaper than custom... or at least, that's how it seems to me, a guy who doesn't play the bassoon.