Maton MS2000 Mastersound Deluxe

This guitar was handmade in Melbourne Australia in 2006 (I think).
The body is solid Queensland maple with a Victorian Blackwood face and Tabacco Sunburst gloss finish.
Finger board is Rosewood with Mother of Pearl block inlays. Neck is set. 22 frets and jumbo fret wire.
Pick up at the bridge is a Maton MHB2 Humbucker and Maton MHN2 at the neck both with coil tap for plenty of tonal options.
There are two volume controls, two tone controls (both with coil tap) and a 3 way toggle selector.
The body is a double cutaway and is fairly weighty. Tuners are Chrome Grover Rotomatic machine heads. has a Tonepros stop tail piece and bridge.
I managed to get a deluxe hardcase with a little negotiation with mine which highly I recommend as it fits the guitar perfectly.

My main styles of play range from Blues, Classic rock , jazz and hard rock. The Maton can lock down tones to cater for all these styles with a flick of the tone controls.

I run this gat through a Vox Valvetronix 120 with a VC12 foot pedal. The combination of the Maton and the Vox allows me to have just about any cool tone heard from a guitar in the last 50 years.

When the humbuckers are locked in this guitars really purrs, easily holding down a rhythm or breaking a lead. When in single coil mode you really hear the difference going from a warm fat tone to a bright clear one.

My only gripe is that it seems to lose a little punch when going from double to single coil and I find it a little bright if I dont roll off the tone a bit in single, but thats just a personal thing.

The action on the guitar when I bought it made it very easy to play. It is quite low yet I can attack the strings without buzz. One thing I have found is that when bending the E and B strings past the 12th fret I have to fight a bit to get the note I want. I have only broken one string but I am always getting the feeling like one is going to go when flayling away up the neck.

The finish on the body work is flawless. The transluscent Tobacco sunburst finish really brings out the Victorian Blackwood and is a thing of beauty.

Currently I play in a two piece band and we practice two times a week and get an occassional gig.

I have never had a problem with this guitar and have complete faith in it. It feels very robust and has taken a couple of falls without any majors. My 10 month old daughter has pulled it off its stand a couple of times and it is still sweet as.

I play this guitar every day and it still sounds and looks as good as the day I got it.

The strap buttons could be bigger as my strap has popped off a couple of times.

I feel pretty confident with this guitar when gigging but I would always have a back up no matter what I was playing. My back up is a Les Paul Standard so I'm pretty much invincible.

I've been playing over 20 years and also own a 60's Reissue Les Paul Standard and a 98 Strat. Since buying the Maton My Paul has had little playing time and my strat could be forgiven for feeling neglected. Reason being that the Maton can can pull off tones very close to these guitars plus a few of its own without the need to unplug and plug different guitars.
I would definitely buy this guitar again if it were stolen.
The main thing I like about it is its versatility and my main gripe would be a liitle loss of punch when going from double to single coil.
I took some time over buying this guitar (3 months) playing Paul Reeds, Les Pauls, Strats, G&L's and more but kept coming back to the fact it gave me all the tones I liked in one guitar.
If you are looking for a versatile, robust yet stunningly beautiful guitar then look no further.

This guitar was made in Melbourne Aust. as far as I know; not sure when - best guess is 2004.
22 frets, carved flamed cherry red maple top, 2 volume - 2 tone (bridge and neck volume control is a push-pull pot), 3-way selector, H/H config with coil tap on each, Maton passive humbucking pickups, double cutaway, tuno-matic bridge with stop tail piece, grover deluxe tuners, no accessories.

i'll give it a 9 for features do the fact that there is no hard case included.

the sound that the Maton produces is warm, pure and bright - much like pouring chocolate sauce over cool ice-cream.

my music style is mainly blues and classic rock, with influences from hendrix, clapton, slash, angus young etc. the maton suits these styles marvellously and very convincingly too.

i run it through a peavey delta blues (30watt all valve combo) and an early 90's marshall valvestate 40v. effects include an 80's boss ds-1, jim dunlop wah and marshall bluesbreaker.

the maton is not noisy at all, except on the coil-tapped bridge pickup there is a slight hum, however nothing like a strat.

the sound is amazing. i played a gibson les paul smartwood next to it and the maton had a fuller and warmer tone, yet still bearing all the subtle and bright treble tones. the maton easily a better guitar in my opinion.

with the coil-taps on both pickups you can pretty much double the standard configurations that a H/H guitar bears, with this in mind the sound possibilites are numerous. with the coil-tap on, the bridge pickup sounds trebly and slightly nasaly, which is really good for crunchy sounds. with the neck tapped, the bottom end is halved and it turns into a excellent rythm sound, almost like an electro acoustic.

i love the warmth of the bridge pickup, but it still bears that harsh bite that is common to bridge pickups. it is amazing. and the neck pickup is second to none - silky smooth especially on the clean channel.

Action was perfect - not too low. i changed the strings when i got it home and this did not affect the guitar at all, which is great considering i went up a guage.

everything is perfect, finish, binding, maple top, transparent finish on back and neck of guitar.

the only flaw there was is a slight scratch in the laminate on the back on the guitar where somebody had obviously worn a belt or something.

The neck of this guitar is excellent, very fast, smooth and playable. when i switch from playing my acoustic to the maton it feels as though my fingers are flying!! and the MOP (mother of pearl) inlays shimmer in the sun - beautiful!

very solid construction. with stand gigs for sure.
hardware will last if you look after it - like any guitar.
the finish hasnt worn yet, but that does not bother me as it shows that it is a well loved and used instrument.
strap buttoms are like muffins - they are huge.
i can depend on it, i am depending on it.
i would use it at a gig without backup becasue i traded up two guitars (Epi SG and MIM strat) for this baby, so its gonna have to go the distance.

N/A

ive been playing for about 2 years and ive had a string of electric guitars, and the maton is by far the best, and the most exspensive.

if it were stolen/lost i would seriously consider buying another - maybe the next model up.

i love the binding, finish, carved maple top, the sound and the fact that its mine.

compared it to a gibbo les paul, and SG - much better.

thank you.

My guitar is a bit of a hybrid between the standard and deluxe MS2000 seeing it has 2 splittable alnico humbuckers, usually only feature of the deluxe version. Made in melbourne, Australia from Australian hardwoods. I think it is mostly made from silkwood, it says on the maton site. Very nice high gloss transparent cherry finish. 22 frets. The humbuckers in the bridge and neck are apparently made by maton. The three way selector is rather similar in look and position to a Les Paul's. Splitting the humbuckers is achieved by the 2 push pull tone pots. The maton has a original shape altough it is more of a LP style than a strat. Stop tail bridge. Suprisingly it came with grover tuners, which i expected were only for the deluxe model. Set neck with moderate radius. I'd give it 8.5 but i can't do it in the rating bit.(I don't think)

My first encounter with my maton at home was a most joyous occasion. Very rich, full and powerful? Thats probably not the right word but it has a nice sustained growl that is bloody good(don't really know how to describe it.) It made my rather shit little marshall enter a previously unknown realm of sound. I also played it through the mighty tsl 602 combo at the store and that was spot on for me. I think it is a naturally bassy guitar yet doesn't lack at the other end so i'd say its well balanced. The other thing i like is the variety of sound it generates. At the neck it has a real full, melting?, blended, extremely mellow sound yet at the bridge it is really capable of solid punk rock sounds. It suits my music style which is rather broad and caters for all songs from lagagon, unwritten law and all that punk stuff to RHCP and lots of others.

The pickups were very well adjusted, the action was in the middle which is good cause i don't like it real low. I'd say the action perfect for me. I haven't really found any poor craftmanship etc as of yet. Of course the guitar scored a better mark with me as it was by fortune that the action was perfect.

AT this stage i can't really give a well observed and fair review of the reliability as i haven't had long enough to assess this. From what i can tell the strap buttons fell nice and soild and thats about all i can really say. Only time will tell.

Buying this guitar was a really long process for me. I first of all had to find the guitar which fitted all of my stringent requirements. This took 3 months. The maton fitted the bill but i had to raise a little extra cash so it took a little longer. I then had to go to my dealer and get my custom pickup option worked out. Thsi appeared to be easy enough so i oredered it on the 10th of July 2001. The factory said 8 -16 weeks.On about the eighteenth week it arrived, hooray. I got there all excited open her up, she was stunning, plugged her in, nice, selected the front pickup, reached for the tone pot, pulled it up. Or at least tried to pull the bloody thing up. The damn fools had not put in a splittable front humbucker. This resulted in a fit of absolute annoyance. So i sent the thing back. Shit, shit. Hopefully they will get it right this time i thought. They said 2 weeks. I said ok. 4 or 5 weeks later my understanding salesman decided we should call. They came up with a few bullshit excuse that are so utterly pathetic for a resonably large established company. So as it came to be buring my maton is and was refered to as the maton saga. This was only probably as a result of the custom potions but even still it was a pretty poor performance.

In the end the maton saga was worth it. I am very pleased at going for the alnico pickups, the colour is nice, the action good, the sound bloody good etc. I would have to recommend it, but do yourself a favour and buy the deluxe as opposed to having to deal too much with the people at maton. Good value, quality guitar, i'd say 8.5 but i still haven't worked out how to do the .5 on the rating section of writing the review.

OK features are Pretty standard, a double cutaway guitar with two pickups by Maton. Treble pickup is splitable rythm pickup is single coil (suposed to be anyway, sounds pretty thick and creamy to me tho!!) carved top Australian made using Aussie hardwoods. Tunomatic bridge and stop bar 6 a side gotoh deluxe tuners. Mine is in a 'translucent cherry' finish with body binding and rosewood fingerboard with dot markers (deluxe has trapezoid). It was made 1 month ago and I had to wait a month to get it well worth the wait.

Really suits my style of playing which is mostly top 40 stuff with heavier stuff thrown in. I usually play rythm and for this the Maton is excellent. My other guitar is a gibson LP studio and the MS200 is much lighter and has better access to higher frets. There is a variety of sounds using the split treble pickup however I find that the treble pickup is significantly louder than the rythem pickup.My only bitches are the position of the jack(same as a les paul and I hate it on my paul as well) and the volume differences between pickups, the last bitch is not really that important but the rosewood fingerboard is a little pale for me as I really like ebony fingerboards.I like the clean lines of this guitar and the sounds from it are cool.

Guitar was well set up (and in tune after a trip with a courier for 12 hrs) frets well polished and no buzzing at all. This is only the standard model and the woods arnt that fancy but it has a two piece back and bookmatched top. there are no flaws that I can find as delivered however it recieved a knock and the finish did chip a little easily. overall though I'm happy

I played this guitar live and on the night after it arrived at my house, only needed to tune up again once all night!! very stable guitar. the hardware is ok though it dosn't seem to be the highest quality only time will tell strap buttons are more than adequate and are actually a pain to put the strap on and off, but I'm paranoid and have fitted straplocks. I bought this guitar as a good backup to my les paul but found it unbelieveable to play from the minute I first strummed it. I would gig without backup if I really had to but wouldnt like it regardless of what guitar I was using. Again the finish seems a little brittle but quite adequate.

has 12 month warranty and Maton very easy to talk to I spoke via e-mail to them about my purchase and they were all friendly and helpful. nothing will go wrong but if it did they would be cool about it I reckon.

I've been playing about 12 years and I have a gibson LP Studio and play through a fender super 210 valve amp. I would have liked to buy the deluxe as it had both pickups splittable and looks prettier. I love the weight and feel of this guitar and the tone. my favourite feature is the splittable treble pickup and Aussie made!!!!!!!
If it was stolen I'd track the asshole down, kill them twice and make them buy me a second one.

This is basically the new models of the Mastersound series, (see MS500). Carved Victorian Ash top on a silkwood body and neck, and an ebony fretboard. Twin humbuckers.. Everything else is like an LP in the distinct shape of a mastersound. Nice fat frets and very shiny finish.

The pickups are made by Maton, and although by paying about $500 Aust more, you can have Seymour Duncans instead, you have GOT to try these pickups. Jangly when you want it, creamy when you want it, and.. basically with both humbuckers being splitable, you can get almost any sound you could want..

the only problem I had was with the other model in the store, one model down in the MS2000 series, the Standard. The switch died while I tried it out. so watch out for that.

And the bridge is cheap and crappy. If you do your own intonation, get a gotoh right away. Otherwise, it'll work fine.

Well, my style is more pop/atmospheric/rock.. although I like to shred some Satriani (and this baby does it well) it's usually guys like Robert Smith of The Cure, and Neil Finn (Crowded House/Split Enz) that I idolise. And.. well, this baby can pull it off.

On the single coil mode, no noise I could hear and the sound is far from weak. In fact, the guitar would sound great if sold permantly on single coils.

Variety, I covered it.

Sounds like a dream. I sold a 52 Tele RI to get this, and have no regrets. Although My Gretsch is feeling a little neglected..

This is the only failing point.
Although it came with a beautiful flame finish, the clear bit has developed a couple of cracks on the side, and I can see a small spot where the paint has been eaten through..

Personally, I couldn't care less.. I mean, I admire a guitar that's been worn in.. but this happened after the first couple of months..

Setup from the factory, no idea. After every guitar purchase, I go home, install 10-52s and readjust the action. but pickups were great and perfectly adjusted pickups..

The flaws I noted, give a low mark, but eveything else score a 10

Built to last, definately. It's a players guitar, not a collectors guitar. And with higher fret access then a LP,

Finish will go soon, and leave me with a cool worn in look.

Strap buttons are solid, and huge, a straplock is not necessary, but I used them anyway

Maton = Dependable?
Pope = Catholic?

Well, prior to the purchase, I've contacted them about the specs, and everyone from the receptionist, to the head man is accessable.

Try to get it repaired?? Well, what could go wrong? Besides, for a new guitar it comes with it's own warranty. But from my prior dealings with them on other guitars, they've always helped.

I've heard that Maton are also making a 12 string electric Mastersound next year.

I'll be first in line!!!

I have to admit a bias towards Matons. Ever since I got my first steel string acoustic, I fell in love with their acoustic tone. Now with a small body acoustic (EBG808), MS500 (bolt on version) and the MS2000, I'm in love with them.

If it was stolen, I certainly hope the thief will recieve threefold, but yeah I'll buy it again!!!

While trying it out in the store, I compared it to some PRS and LPs.. no comparison..
and paying a hell of a lot less too. (In Australia, it's not uncommon to pay $2.5k US for a basic LP) I was thinking about a Gretsch Jet, until I found this.

As for what I love about it.. a smooth neck. Set the action nice and low, and your hand flys!!!

...and sustain!!! (I sound like I'm in Spinal Tap)

and tone!!!