Maton MS2000 Standard

2004 made in Australia. 22 fret 24.5" scale Queensland Maple set neck with rosewood fret board 12" radius. Queensland Maple Body (Mahogany like inspite of the name) with a Rock Maple carved top. 2 volume 2 tone controls and a 3-way switch to control 2 humbuckers MHN1 at the neck and a MHNB1 (with splittable coils) in the bridge. High Gloss polyester clear finish over natural wood, double cutaway but with a long upper bout. Chrome Tone-pro's tuneamatic bridge and stoptail with Grover Rotomatic tuners.

Essentially this is Maton's nod to the Les Paul but with enough variation and pizzaz to make it their own design. Even though the upper bout is cutaway it still retains the body character of a single cut guitar body. It has all the features you would expect for this style of guitar

The wood is nice and resonant and the maple cap gives the tone a nice lift. It suits most styles of music but sounds its best at the heavy electric blues, rock, old school metal end of things. This is largely due to the pickups which are fairly warm compared to the PAF type sound.I found the pickups to be really quite good (particularly given the pricing for these new) - but just not exceptional.
I have been playing this through a standard 2X12 Mesa Boogie Nomad 55 and through a modified (dropped gain) Epiphone Juniour head and Celestion G12L-35 speaker in an external cab.
The guitars clean sound (neck pu)is quite full bodied but just a tad blurry on the bass E and A strings (typical for a Les Paul style guitar)but with good definition and note clarity on the higher strings. The bridge pick up clean has the typical boxy HB sound, notes are clear and chords have a slight bark to them. Through a crunchy amp the neck pu is good for notes but tends to muddy up a tad on chords and the bridge drives the amp hard produces biting chords and good single notes - again typical of this style of guitar.
All in all this is a fine sounding guitar. Its not a fantastic jazzer or an all slaying metal soul reaver - but covers all the middle ground beautifully.
If I really wanted to turn it in to an exceptional guitar I would change the opick ups - but I am in no hurry.
Oh yeah the split coil thing - I hate them, why bother - buy a tele!

I bought this second hand but it had hardly been played and was as it came from the factory. The set up was spot on and the guitar plays well. The guitar is really well made and the finish was 99.8% there - the only 3 things were; the veneer on the headstock is slightly proud of the wood in a couple of places, the glue line on the neck could have been finished better and a couple of the screws in the neck pickup ring are not straight. All minor **** really.
The neck on this guitar (as with my other Maton, and others I have played)is superb - these guys have neck profiles sussed. It stays in tune even with some serious fret and string abuse. Also hangs nicely on the strap.

Mate, this a solid, bulletproof guitar. Hardware is high quality, durable stuff. I have a 1974 Maton solidbody with a similar finish to this guitar and it has withstood years of hard rocking abuse - its scratched, chipped where its been smacked, polished where your arm and fingers rub but its never worn through. I expect it to wear well on this guitar too, certainly better than my nitro finished guitar (much as I love it). The strap buttons on this are BOMBPROOF (best standard ones I've seen) no need for straplocks.

My dealings with Maton have always been positive. They have responded promptly to e-mails and always answered my technical, and lame, questions well. I have never had to go back to them with a warranty problem though.

I currently own a MIA strat and a Maton JB6 (SG style) solid body, Ovation acoustic and thats about it. I have played a lot of other guitars of this style and this rates with the best of them. I like it better than about 60% of the Les Pauls I've tried and less than about 10% of them. I would certainly rate it on a par with Fernandes Revelle and others of that ilk. I have always been impressed with the consistency of Maton's, they vary a bit over a model but not as much as some of the big names like Fender and Gibson.

I find the guitar fits me well, is really comfortable to play over long periods and sounds damn fine. Would I ever get another one? In a heartbeat. Bang for buck these rate very highly.

Same as others, 2003 model QLD maple body and neck, rosewood fretboard, beautiful blackwood top, no flames just nice natural grain, clear finish. 2 humbuckers vol/tone for each, 3 way switch, coil spitter on bridge. All you need!

Love it! I disagree with others about the pickups not being good clean. Ok so it's not a strat, but if thats what you want get a strat. Great rich, full, punchy clean on the neck pup, role down the tone, jazzy as hell. Split the bridge and mix a bit in with the neck and you've got the funk, brother. Geat for atmospheric stuff with some wah, chorus and delay. Damn close to a Les Paul when distorted (I know, we A/B them)
Covers a lot of territory, just not Fender territory.

Looks great, plays awesome. Everything where it should be.

Solid as hell

No need for it so far

Brilliant, my number one. I also have a strat, ibanez jazzbox, and Les Paul custom. AUSTRALIAN!

Single coil in the neck, humbucker with coil tap in the bridge 21 frets etc etc (as above).Pretty standard features

Mine is from 2001, it has these lame chrome covered pickups that screw directly into the body. God they suck! (my cheap ass epiphone les paul has nicer pickups in it). I play through valve amplifiers only nowdays. I have a fender blues junior and a lovely princeton that I built myself (im going to build a bigger brother for it soon). The maton pickups sound incredibly muddy and they boom no matter how you adjust them, theyre just terrible!. The neck pickup seems to have more output than the bridge and just drowns it out in a terrible muddy blur of noise

Guitar is secondhand, but looks like its new. Beautiful to play, has a wonderfull low action and excellent sustain. After doing a setup on it I was still unimpressed with those damned pickups. They just arent going to sound good

It will be a wonderfull guitar once the pickup cavities are routed out a bit more to take some nice humbuckers. Rock solid guitar

Maton are always very helpfull as I already own a couple of maton acoustics and have had they repaired by maton in the past.

Ive been playing for over 11 years, I own a couple of maton acoustics and an epiphone les paul, I bought this guitar cause it was fairly cheap and in great nick for a secondhand job. A friend has a MS2000 deluxe with Humbuckers in it and thats probably what id replace this with if it were lost or stolen (I wish the pickups were lost or stolen...) But then again after some modifications I dont think ill be able to put this guitar down.

This is a truly awesome sounding guitar. I am playing through a Fender Twin Reverb and a Marshall valvestate and this sounds great though both. Sounds really good with the gain set to about 4 on the marshall. The only problem i got with it is the clean sound. Somethings missing i dunno what it is.

I must have been really lucky coz it was set up perfect in the factory, no problems there so far. action came set really low, been really liking it though. don't really like the volume and tone knobs on it though, they look a bit cheap. it has a really fast neck on it, and jsut like all the maton necks it is awesome. looks great and i always get comments about the finish of it.

gigged with this guitar a few times and i have had it for about 5 months and i would comfortably gig without a backup. strap buttons are HUGE which is great. the only problem i have with them is the screw which holds them in. after about a month the screw shredded the wood and i had 2 whack in one with bigger thred but i havn't had any probs since.

i played it for ages in the shop only 2 find out my dad didn't have his credit card so it had 2 be shipped 2 me. the toggle switch got broken and it took ages 2 get another one

been playing for a few years and my mate had a ms500 and as soon as i played it i went i gotta get one. the ms2000 is even better and i love the carve top. overall though this guitar is awesome. wish it had a coil tap on both the pickups but i suppose thats y they made the deluxe

Made in 2001 (before maton started using double humbuckers.) 2 standard maton humbuckers (with coil tap on the bridge). Crome harware (Tonepro bridge, grover tuners.) Wicked black gloss finish. Nothing extrordinary for a guitar, but not overly difficult to get a good sound.

The music my band plays ranges from really heavy (think dream theater) to mellow and spacey. I play through a Laney TF800 (awesome, if you can find one) and a bunch of effects (notably; a ibanez smashbox (sm7), boss phaser (ph4) and delay (dd5).) Despite what everyone else has said, the clean isn't that bad. It's not as warm as say a les paul, but hey, it's not a les paul. Distorted is where the guitar shines. It cuts brilliantly through the mix, doesn't get too muddy and is just pretty damn awesome. The sustain lasts forever, I could like, get a bite and it'd still be going :D Granted, I use a lot of effects, but the guitar suits it perfectly.

I use .11's, and the guitar came with 9's or 10's. I didn't have to change the setup though, I guess I just got lucky. A friend of mine has a 500 series and had to get it adjusted. I don't think any guitar can come out of the factory and be perfectly setup for each individual. The finish is spectacular, in fact, sexy. The guitar, asthetically, was perfect.

Strap buttons = FREAKIN HUGE! I bought a leather maton strap for this guitar, and it's never coming off! I've had the guitar for a while and so far it's held up beautifully. The finish did get some light scratches from one of my friends who played it (note: don't wear anything on you right arm (for right-handers) when playing, you'll regret it), but it has fallen out of the case and I'm yet to find the ding. It holds tuning really well. Playing for a whole day will put it out of tune, but that could just as well be the strings. I've gigged without a backup. I don't like doing it though, any guitar could go out on you.

My guitar didn't come with the little 'how to use' booklet (thus I couldn't find the coil tap switch). I emailed maton and by the end of the week I had the book. I've emailed them a few times with questions and each time they've answered fairly quickly and enthusiastically. The only problem with maton is ordering a new guitar, you'll have to wait 8 weeks!

I've been playing for around 4 years, and i haven't owned a lot of guitars, but I've spent lots of time hanging around music stores playing them, and this is comparibly one awesome guitar. If it were stolen I'd try to get it back, if that failed I'd save up and buy the STD DLX model (it has a much better clean sound). Like I said before, I use a Laney TF800 head through a laney 418 quad, and my chain goes; guitar -> boss bf-3 flanger -> ibanez sm-7 smashbox -> boss ph-4 phaser -> psk boss chorus clone -> boss dd-3 delay -> amp. Sometimes I also throw a Jim Dunlop crybaby in there.

Queensland Maple body and neck, rosewood? fretboard, blackwood top with subtle flames, tobacco burst finish. Les Paul setup, 2 humbuckers, with volume and tone for each. Had a choice of four at the shop, played them all (no difference that a proper set up wouldn't fix) and picked the best looking one. What can I say, well built, looks awesome. If you look close there are some imperfections in the finish, almost like there were small bubbles in the dye as it dried. Also got a good case thrown in.

Ummm, still trying to get the best sound out of it. It does not tolerate my little amp well (Fender 85 through a Boss GT6), but heaps better through a decent amp. Pickups are made to be distorted, definately not at their best when clean, but very heavy when given some dirt. I'm saving for a set of SD's ,or the new Maton pickups, ASAP. Coil split on bridge is not usable for me.

Well put together, solid guitar, hard to break I would say. Frets finished well, it's got a Maton neck, nuff said. Slight imperfections in the finish as I said, but you've got to look for them. Played it in for 3 months, then got a pro setup with heavier strings. Sweeet!

Strong.

3 emails and 2 phone calls for a simple querie, after I spent my hard earned money on your stuff. Come on.

Played on and off for 14 years, Tried many, many guitars ( PRS, Parker Gibson etc etc, everything except Maton as I was in the UK at the time) over several months. Was about to buy a Gibson Les Paul double cut when I tried the Matons, end of story. And its Australian.
I give it a 9 because of the crap pickups (easily fixed) and the finish was not perfect, but close.

This is a freshly made Maton MS2000 Standard with a custom mod (ebony fingerboard). 24.5 scale, jumbo frets, 12 inch radius. Les Paul stule controls. 2 Maton passive exposed humbuckers. The Body is Qld Maple and Bunya in a black spectro finish, the neck is Qld Maple. Chrome tuneo bridge. The look is somewhere between an EVH Wolfgang and a Les Paul. It's lightweight too! I love this guitar!

I play Hard Rock and demand a mighty, crushing sound from my gear and I'll tell you for free, this axe has it in spades. It's as if this thing was specifically built to rock. I'm plugging into a Marshall DSL 50 head with Marshall quad. Clean the Maton bridge pup is terrible, the neck is OK though. Not exceptional though. It could be the amp. I don't really dig the clean on the DSL. But here's where I say 'screw clean. Who plays clean these days anyway!' :)
Dirty the sound is thick like a Les Paul, but with a crisp bite that makes it sound original. Having said that I'm considering dropping some Duncans in to see if I can really push the tone to the best it can be. But stock, it rocks. Hard.

The set up from the factory wasn't the best (is it ever), I had to raise the pups a smidge and put heavier strings on, but apart from that, breathtaking. Mainly because of the unusual finish. I ordered black spectro. I expected black with a little metal flake through it. I got a guitar that changes colour pending on what angle you view it from and where the light hits it. It's a real stage guitar. It's awesome! The ebony board is fast as lightning and the only con I experienced was trying to find the truss rod cover (under the Mastersound logo on the body). Apart from that it's a looker and a player. The perfect combination.

I'm sure this guitar will withstand the beating I give it onstage. It's going to be my main stage guitar so it'd better get ready! Ha! The hardware is sturdy looking (except the pup selector switch - it looks a little cheap). The finish seems thick and glossy so I think it will stand a few dings. The strap buttons are huge. No need for straplocks. And as good as this guitar is, I'd never gig without a few backups. In fact I might get myself another for a backup. :)

Maton are a busy, yet friendly and helpful company. I have never had a problem.

I've been playing for about 13 years and I own a couple of Dean guitars (fantastic American brand) and a mixed bag of amps )currently using a new DSL). If it were stolen I would hunt the prick down, beat him down, take my guitar back along with the punks money and buy myself another MS2000!!! The only piece of advice I can give you is if you are getting one built, take time to go to the Maton website and read through the various custom options you can get. Their mods are insanely affordable. Rock on Maton!

as above

well, im reviewing this after coming off a vintage LP, so i may seem overly critical. but here it is.
i use mine with a fender tube amp - the gutar itself is of good quality buildwise and i have no complaints about it. but my beef is with the pups. mine has the standard Maton exposed coil type. many have compared the style of this instrument to a LP, but i found the similarity to be cosmetic only. perhaps the pups are best suited to a modern distortion-type sound - and they do distort early on your pedal gain knob. however, for clean playing i found them to be boomy, flat toned & unmusical. harsh critcism maybe, but ill remedy this with Gibson "57's" soon enough!
so if youre looking for truly sweet sounding qualities, youll have to do something about the pups.

2003 production, 22 frets, laminated top finished in charcoal/black with white binding.Rosewood fretboard, chrome Grover tuners and Les Paul style pickup covers.
Beautiful neck (it's a Maton) and superb finish.
Both Pickups are Maton humbuckers.
2x volume, 2 x tone with coil tap on the bridge.
All chrome hardware.
My only bitch? The knobs are pretty low rent in appearance. They are the same as the ones you get on Epiphones.
Other than that, it's a stunner.

I must have played 30 guitars befoe I chose this. Being a birthday present, I was like a kid in a lolly shop.
I play blues/rock. My main influences? Dave Gilmour and the like.
These really do compare favourably to the much lauded Les Paul/Strat.
Its not that it sounds the same, but the output and tone are as unique and full as the Les/Strat.
Creamy smooth across the neck with that great coil tap on the bridge.
The range of sound is immense, and gets quite dirty when required...
The greatest thing about these are the necks. Why have beauitiful everything else if it plays like a cheapie? Maton seem to have this absolutely sussed.
If I could give it a rating above 10 I would, simply because it sounds and plays like it cost twice as much.
Am I going on?...

I have in a moment of weekness, purchased an Epiphone LEs Paul 50th anniversary a month earlier (knowing full well that I really wanted the Maton, but not wanting to pay the price). This was a nice guitar.
The Matons finish did not appear to be as accurate as the epi's. However! The epiphone was already showing signs of wear in the finish! After a month the gold plating(yeah right) was wearing off the pickups! And I was being really nice to it!
My point is. The Matons binding could be more even, bla bla bla. There are no errors, just more evidence of human hands in the production process. And I am ok with that.
I beleive the Maton will age a hell of a lot better.
I have to mention that the truss rod cover on the epi had a spelling mistake..."50th Anniverary Edition"
Come on guys...

The build quality as mentioned elsewhere here is solid and of a very high standard. I'll tell you more in a year when it's had some knocks...

Nothing to say here. I know people who have had prompt resolution of warranty issues etc. I'll give it a rating because I have not yet heard anything but praise.

I the Epiphone Les Paul 50th Anniversary (1 month old) and traded up to this Maton MS2000. I can not tell you how much of a smart move that was!
I had done alot of research into the Matons, played all the different models and also played them back to back with other guitars.
I played this one back to back with a Les Paul Custom, $5000 here.
It compares very favourably, and is within 10% of the Gibson, for $1500 bucks...
This one is a life time commitment.
I am making a rosewood scratch plate to suit, as these do not seem to be available...
This guitar has confirmed a thought I always had. Matons are not expensive Australian guitars, they are very reasonably priced world standard guitars.

Hand made in Melbourne, Australia 2002. It's a beautiful wine-red sunburst model - the nicest-looking guitar I've seen. For a description of woods, frets, etc check out the Maton website. The neck is great - very fast, very similar to Les Paul in action.

I play gospel, blues, rock - just about anything. No shredding, though. I'm currently playing through an old Peavey 50 watt Bandit, but hope to be able to get a Yamaha DG60DFX - 112 soon. The neck pick-up can be a little noisy on some settings with the Boss ME30 I use, but I think that's more the fault of the Boss unit and the oild Peavey amp than the Maton. The bridge pick-up is splittable - coil tap switch justs pulls out to get that Strat sound. Basically, this can sound like a Les Paul, a Strat, and has it's own unique (very nice ) sounds as well. My keyboard player commented today on the nice tones from this guitar - and she never does that. By the way, I've got the classic humbuckers - not the exposed ones.

Beautiful - best ever - couldn't have asked for more!

It does withstand live playing - I've already used it for this. Everything is solid and well made. The strap bottons are huge - no need for strap locks. This is not a mass-produced guitar - it is hand made, and the quality shows. I would have a back up anyway, just in case some idiot ran over it with a truck as I was getting it out of my car.

I don't know never dealt with 'em, hope I never have to - unless they give me a free factory tour!

I've been playing for 27 years, and this is the guitar I've been aiming for since I heard of them. The quality - for a fixed neck, humbucker-equipped guitar with binding and beautiful finish - is outstanding. Beats Gibson Les Pauls for the price, as a the Gibson Les Paul Standard retails for about $5,500 here in Australia. So I got a better guitar (hand made too - not mass produced)for a quarter of the price. Anything I wish it had? Hmmmm - maybe Seymour Duncans - but they are on the most expensive MS 2000 , which costs well over $2,000. SO - I'm happy!