Maton MS500 Mastersound

This guitar was made in 2004 in the melbourne factory, i had it made just for me. it has 21 frets, it is a solid top, it only has one tone and one volume, but the more expencive models have a tone and a volume for each pickup. the neck pickup is a single coil (even though heaps of people think its a humbucker, they should read the web site)and th brige is a humbucker with a coil tap. the wood on the body is queensland maple and the fretboard is rosewood. it has a tune o matic bridge. the tuners are grover vintige. the neck is kind of like a les pauls, and it ses it has jumbo frets but they seem more like medium sized ones to me. it came with nothing.

I think this guitar sounds great for all styles, blus, rock and especialy jazz. i am using a ashton 100watt stack with it, and mainly just reverb and distortion and somtimes wah. it obviosly hums a bit when its on single coil, but on humbucker its very quiet.

the guitar was set up beutiffuly in the factory.

johnny

on a tuesday mourning

it is really good because johnny

2002-2003 model.
21 Frets.
Twin Humbuckers.
Silkwood body.
Vintage Style tuners.
No Bag or case included.

The sound of this guitar is poor. The pick-ups have no life in them, it is a very deep and bassy sound. I dont mind the neck pick-up for clean music but other than that the sound doesn't suit any of my styles (blues, rock, emo-rock, industrial). I have perservered with this guitar due to a lack of wealth and the playability of it. I play it through a tonemaster head and a tonemaster 4x12 and have played it through other top notch tube amps, it still sounds bad.

The guitar played well from the factory. The action was and still is low. It had 10s on it when I bought it, I changed to 9s and played with them for a while but now I use 11-52s to improve the tone (which still kinda sux). The finish is faultless and the guitar still looks a treat.

The guitar is reliable and never goes out of tune, but it breaks strings. It used to break strings every rehearsal or gig. Maton replaced the bridge and this seems to have rectified the problem, but I haven't gigged or played too hard on it since. I wouldn't gig without a backup because of string breakage.

The company fixed the guitar promptly and were sorry about the string breakages, they refunded some string as well.

I have been playing for eight years and have amassed a small collection of equipment. I have a Japanese Squier (my very first guitar). A $50 washburn Tour 24 (which totally outclasses the Maton). A 1972 Maton Southern Star Acoustic (beautiful guitar, a perfect 10 all round). A 1972 Martin 000-18. A Fender Tonemaster head and quad. A Marshall JCM 900 head. Line6 Pod 2. Crate G120C XL.
I wish I had played the guitar more and not relied on the magazine review that I read. I wouldnt replace this guitar if it was lost or stolen, yet I dont like selling stuff so I keep it anyway.
Basically I think the guitar is a cool looking unit that plays beautifully but sounds terrible. A pick-up replacement is on the cards.

Ok so how many features can a guitar have. This one has 2 pickups, the neck being a big woolly sounding single coil and the bridge is a splittable humbucker with a nasty flat lifeless tone. It has a 3 way selector, a switch for splitting the bridge pickup, a volume pot and a totally pointless "tone" control. I say pointless because the pickups are SOOO muddy and toneless there is no point rolling anymore treble out of the signal.

I bought it new from a shop that it was impossible to turn the amp up and really listen to the tone so i really did'nt find out how bad it was till i got it home. The guitar played ok and i knew i could set it up to play Great so no probs there. The pickups are the WORST i have ever heard and being a live sound engineer i have heard some shockers but these are the pinnacle of bad tone. Dull, lifeless, inarticulate mud is the only sound these a capable of..oh and also microphonic squealing. I rang the shop and they said contact the Maton factory which i did. They told me they were aware of the poor tone quality and to bring it in so they could change a pot to brighten them up. Marginal improvement. Still muddy though. So all in all its the worst sounding guitar i have ever played.

Reasonably playable out of the box but still required some setting up to suit me which is to be expected with any guitar. The only problem i found that i could not resolve was tuning instability. It just would never stay in tune for more than about 10minutes playing and i put it down to the vintage style machine heads as everything else checked out fine. The finish was superb and the grain of the wood was beautiful as was the translucent burgundy paint btu there is no point having a nice looking guitar that sounds like shit and wont stay in tune.

Yes this guitar would stand up to hard playing night after night but would need a lot of money spent on stable machine heads and good pickups to make it an acceptable guitar. There are much better options out there for less money that deliver the goods without the hassles

They tried to be helpfull but never solved the problems that quite frankly should not have existed in the first place. Admitting they new the pickups were substandard but still selling it without remedying the problem is just not right

I have owned a few guitars over the years. Various price ranges and varying quality but have never been disapinted with any before this one. They have a generally good reputation but if they continue to make instruments that sound this bad and wont stay in tune then their rep will suffer. I am asked at gigs all the time what i think of various products and as far as my dealing with Maton products go (I also have a very ordinary Maton acoustic) i have very little good to say. Best and worst advertising is quite often word of mouth. I have recently sold the mastersound in complete disgust. Buyer beware.

yr 2000 model, australian made. volume, tone, 3-way switch, split switch for bridge pickup. neck p-90 style single coil (fat and warm), bridge humbucker (weak, especially in split mode). silkwood body. unique retro styling/shape. tune-o-matic bridge, vintage tuners (slip out of tune CONSTANTLY, hard to to find replacements). well finished maple neck, rosewood fingerboard, 21 XJ frets, short scale (24.5"), narrow 1 5/8" nut, good for smaller hands, feels great. no accessories.

excellent for jazz (nice warm neck p-90), ok for rock, but bridge pickup is weak and scratchy, and hard to replace because theyre in weird covers.
i use it thru a peavey transformer amp, which probably does it a lot of favours.
aside from wiring problems (explained later): neck pickup: 9, bridge pickup: 6

excellent action, brilliant neck - definitely the best thing about it. finish is average. mine is a custom "silver spectro" finish - dont bother, its not worth the $200AUD extra. about a two years after i bought it, i noticed buzzing coming out of both pickups - the windings had come loose - cost me an absolute BOMB to get them rewound as it wasnt covered by the warranty. the pickup selector and tone pot now crackle when used (i think they may have left the guitar open while the pickups were rewound, and the contacts got dusty)

electronics problems, average finish. probably not too durable. it is now a backup guitar to a godin flat 5.

company is ok, but expensive (was $300AUD to get pickups rewound - still not convinced it was worth it as it was only $1400AUD to start with). and they stuffed up the pickup selector and tone pots. 2 yr warranty.

have been playing 11 yrs, also own handmade jim williams classical guitar, godin flat 5, peavey transformer 112 modelling amp, 1970s yamaha 12-string acoustic guitar.
i wish i had asked more about the pickups and the warranty.
if it were stolen or lost... i dunno. its not bad. the neck is fantastic, but the electronics problems have made me a bit sceptical.

2003. Probably one of the first to come out of the new factory in Box Hill.
22 Frets
Qld Maple solid body, 1 volume, 1 tone, 2 pickup selector and bridge humbucking switch.
Tobacco sunburst body.

I needed a guitar that could rock out as well as produce fat jazz tones. This guitar does it really well. It has a full rich tone even across all pickup combinations. The bridge pickup in single coil mode is still lovely and rich without the harshness the you come to expect.
The pickups are quite hot and are on par with the seynour duncans and dimarzios. There is not fret buzz and it does not have that annoying mid frequency ringing that some electrics have, especially with maple bodies.

0.10's came standard and I haven't made my mind up yet as to well to go down to 0.9's. Originally I though the pickups were adjusted strangely (the neck was seated quite low and the bridge was set higher especially against the bottom E-A-D strings). I set them back but after a couple of days I eventually put them back to the original.
The neck is fantastic. It is a bolt on but rock solid and will take quite a lot of abuse until the tune suffers. Action is low and lovely.
The finish is wonderful. I love the tobacco sunburst.

Quite a heavy guitar for it size. Can't see any dramas although with an angled headstock it suffers from the same problems as any les paul.

Great....they are local too.

This guitar is a keepers. It has a lovely full rich sound that rivals any pro instrument. Because of the range of pickup combinations you can coax big fat les paul/marshall sounds, cool fat cat jazz tones and trebly vintage ric sounds too.

The features of this guitar are documented quite well on the Maton website, www.maton.com.au.

It does not come with anything stock standard, IE: A case. But these are not the "features" I look for when I go to purchase a guitar, hence score of 10. The humbucker/coil tap is what I judge as useful featured unmatched by any guitar in the price match.

My maton would have been a year 2000 model, I'm guessing because the "plug in" point is at the base of the model, some of the earlier models have them coming out of the "front" of the guitar near the volume switches.

This guitar suits my musical style very well... and I'm sure it could suit many others. I believe that the sound you get out of this guitar is very much based on the amp you run it through. For example: John Toogood of band Shihad/Pacifier runs this through a Mesa Boogie amp to get that real raw rock tone. I run mine through a Laney TT20, and I can get quite a sweet tone. I've run it through an Orange AD30 (which is comparable to a Vox AC30, used by such like the Beatles, etc.) And I find I can get a really nice tone out of this guitar.

I play mainly rock or slower sounds. I love bands like Radiohead, Jeff Buckley - that telecaster type sound which this guitar can reproduce with the "middle" setting, two single coils and flat volume with a little gain. But that said I also enjoy bands like Tool or NIN and can get that chunky type Les Paul sound. Of course for real distortion or thrash one must use an effects pedal.

The sound is rich and full. You can control this with the coil tap (a switch which allows you to make the bridge pickup (the rhythym pickup) act like a humbucker(more sound) or a single coil(thinner sound)). It can quite easily be bright amp allowing.

My guitar makes no noise - unless of course the gain is right up, I'm standing next to the amp and I'm in humbucker mode. A Les Paul will generate more electricity and will probably be able to squeal a tiny bit more. Who cares I say, that's why we have pedals :)

Well... look... the guitar was set up very well by Maton, but whenever you buy a guitar, always take it down to the local luthier and get it set up. It's worth your time.

I set the action lower, I adjusted the pickup heights and adjusted the truss rod. It plays nicer than before, that's certain - but the fact is no guitar plays that nicely with "factory settings" it's somewhat common sense here - the basic settings are made to please everyone.

On a side note, I give the guitar a 9 because I noticed that some of the screws are rusting a little and that because of my rough treatment the pickup selector moves too far. Minor issues. All guitars rust. Most worse than mine. And I can replace the screws in the future for marginal cost. Note that these screws are the ones holding the pick guard on nothing to do with the hardware or pickups which are gleaming silver hehehe.

As for the fit and finish, it's great for what you pay for. It's really well done and outshines some expensive guitars! If you want pearl inlays and a really nice looking guitar however, you should buy a 520, 520S, 524 or 526 Deluxe. I would hehe.

It sure will last. It will not stop working.

The strap buttons are very good and eliminate the need for straplocks if you are a sensible player.

I wouldn't use this on a gig without a backup, but I wouldn't use ANY guitar on a gig without a backup.

I've only heard good things about maton. I can't comment too much here because the guitar is working flawlessly.

You know, in the last few weeks I've been thinking about getting a new guitar... I wanted to get a Fender Telecaster, or Perhaps a Gibson 335. But the more I think of it, the more I realise how happy I am with my Maton and how satisfied I am with it.

A good friend of mine has a Brilliant Fender Tele Deluxe and he finds himself using the Maton more often himself.

This guitar is the first I have ever bought. But the amount of time and research I did before I bought it was phenominal. At the time of my starting I was really into buying a Les Paul. But they're expensive let's face it and they're not REALLY flexible between genres. Then I thought I wanted a Strat. Or a Tele. Finally, after playing the Maton and hearing the amount of tone and quality of the guitar I decided to buy it.

If this guitar was stolen or lost, I would be devastated hehe. But I would save up my money and I would buy a Maton Mastersound 520S Deluxe (the pretty model) - I would buy a pretty model, because I am so sure this is the guitar for me and I'm so sure this guitar will last me for many years - why not have a good looking one?

In fact my only regret with buying this guitar was that I did not get a "pretty" one. hehe. How much of a moron must I sound like for saying that? :)

Seriously though my Natural Finish Mastersound is a beautiful guitar. I'm probably only saying this because deep down inside me is a greedy guitar collecting gene and it's dying to break out.

My MS500 is great. And I reccomend it or it's pretty brothers to anyone who's starting out like I was, or needs some real tone.

Silkwood body, Qld maple neck. 21 frets. Unique styling. Body shape looks ab bit like a Peavey Wolfgand/music man axis morphing into a strat.
21 frets (Doh!)

Has a good sound which is quite full. It's good for covering a variety of tones. As a result it doesn't really sound like any other guitar. It's bassier than a strat, yet brighter than a LP. Overall the sound is quite deep. The neck pickup although s/coil, sounds almost like a humbucker, and is tops for jazz styles. I've found that due to its bassier sound, it harmonises really well with strats. Think alto harmonising with soprano, or a viola harmonising with a violin. For playing funk (which I do a lot), I would prefer a strat.

Great setup and action. The finish looks nice, but I've found that it dents really easily. This is a bit of a shame, because I've been treating it rather carefully. The wood is quite heavy, but I guess it's pretty soft too.

As above, this guitar dents really easily. The strap buttons are awesome though.

Never dealt with them directly, but check out the maton website. There is a BBS on it where actual maton reps answer all your questions. How awesome is that!?

Great guitar, and is good at being a workhorse. I could play a variety of styles with this guitar, and it covers a wide range in the audioscape. The build quality of this instrument is superb. Just wish it had an extra fret, but when you consider it's deeper sound, you probably wouldn't use it for styles which require hitting that high "D" (22nd) note. Would probably buy a strat for the more trebly stuff.

2001 Maton Mastersound MS500.
21 frets. Same features as all the other reviews.
Absolutely gorgeous transparant burgundy colour. Nice woodgrain etc.
Would be nice to have a tremolo bridge, but this bridge is still awesome. Hardly ever goes out of tune!!. Frets are a little close together, sometimes a good thing, sometimes not... depends what I'm playing. So cool to have a coil tap on the humbucker.

Unbelievable variety with this guitar. Can go from an early les paul sorta sound to a bright strat/tele like sound. Sounds heaps better than my previous fender and pacifica (that's not saying too much though). Top marks for the clean sound alone. Distorts nicely with the right pedals.

Found it a bit hard to get used to at first. I was going from a 40mm neck and 9-42 strings on my previous guitar, to this 10-46 43mm neck. Have to clamp down a bit harder when playing chords. Also due to the frets being a bit shorter than my previous guitar. Great setup though. Couldn't find any problems with it. Changed the strings to DR's and OhmyGod it sounded tops.

No problems with it yet. Looks as though I'll be handing this down a few generations to come. Could use this thing as a cricket bat.

Never dealt with them, but heard good things.

Easily my favourite guitar. I still have my pacifica, which is also good, and I'll be keeping this for the rest of my life. Was thinking of getting an Epiphone Les Paul, but this was cheaper and better sounding. And it's a Maton.. 'nuff said.

This is a 2001 Maton Mastsound, made in Australia. 21 Frets, because it has a short scale length and a fairly thin, although grippable neck. It has this kool three way rotary pickup selector, with the pick-ups being single coil in the ncek position and coil splittable humbucker in the bridge position. There is also a single tone and volume knob. The pickups were hand wound for Maton and i believe although i believe the higher models use seymour duncans. The body shape is unique, although very nice looking, a cross between a strat and a tele...that's as close a description as i can get. It has a tune-o matic bridge, with a graphite nut and kluson tuners. The frets are jumbo and the scale length is 24 1/2 inches.

I play rock and punk and i can get the range of the sounds that i need and more. It can also imitate the Tool sort of sound and certain Metallica songs. I was only running it through my Orange 15 watt amp, but even through that the humbuckers soound awesome and the single coil is almost as humfree as the humbuckers. The sound is more on the bassy side, with the tone knob allowing a wide range of sounds. There is one thing, possibly because of the way that the pickups are mounted and that is that at high volumes the guitar seems to echo a bit and it isn't the amp because when run through my friends Mg100 head, it sounded the same.

This guitar was set up almost perfect. The action was a bit high and the pickups a bit low, but that is all personal preference. The nut was cut a bit funny though, with the g string giving a ringing noise when struck open, but no grief with the saddle. It was filed down perfectly.

This guitar would probably withstand a live gig, although i haven't played with it live yet. It seems to stand up to home usage very well, hardware is well finished, and the finish looks like it'll only come off if it is scraped. The strap buttons are very big, no chance of the strap falling off here. I would gig without a back up, but that's only because i have no other guitars.

haven't dealt with them...heard good things though

If i were to lose this guitar i would certainly buy another one. It is an excellent guitar, although the echo that is heard at loud volumes is annoying. I believe it is caused by the pickups being set into the pickguard so maybe a block of wood behind the pickguard could help (?)

i bought this guitar in march 2002.. FAR OUT.. the guitar is tops aye.. the features it has is enough for anyone i think..

the guitar sounds great.. i play basic rock and a little hard rock and itsounds full and thick.. not quite like a les paul or a gothic but it has no hick ups.i got no effects with the guiatr but i just give it some distortion and let the riffs flow!!!

the finish of this guitar is excellent. the colour that ui have is really good . its a burgandy colour with the cream scratch guard. it was set up decently from the factory but the pickups could be a little better..

EXCELLENT... no faults at all.. it'd take a semi trailer to break this axe

never had to feal with the company .. only when i bought it which was right there on the spot..

great guitar.. i had to pay a little extra cause im left handed ($1300 AUS$) but its worth every penny!! sounds good.. looks great