Maton PM1 Custom

This Baby has...
24 Frets
3 volume controls (master, Neck, bridge)
Two treble controls.
Stereo output (two guitar outputs)

When you play this Guitar on a clean channel through your amp, it is like angels Singing now add a valve amp to that and youve got the ultimate guitar for slow songs.
Unfortionatley angels arent meant for screaming so when you play power chords through some distortion It just goes trebly and messy, like there is almost no bass response when you palm mute and turning up loud will just hurt, because all you are doing is not helping with bass response you are just hurting your ears with Mid and treble overdrive (trust me it hurts)One easy way to problably fix this problem is get some updated or "now" time Humbucker pickups.
But, BUT!... When you are soloing (excluding Shredding and tapping) it is an absolute killer so to speak, I was playing the solo to smells like teen spirit and boy its as if The guitar has a built in Chorus effect, so an A+ for soloing
Note: The fretboard is laminated so it is verry difficult to Shred or to do Two handed tapping.

Looks better than any guitar Ive ever seen.
This guitar is like a log though, so if your shoulder gets hurt eaisly while playing(assuming your standing up with a strap)lets say a fender stratocaster then you would have a bad back after playing this guitar, I could be verry well the heavyest guitar in the world (its heavier than the gibson les paul)
one last note That this guitar is simmalar in design with the les paul style exept its wider and thicker. so in other words its suffering from obesity.

If I took this to a gig, I would verry well have a backup, but you got to also keep in mind that it is verry heavy and is not easy to toss around.
The finish I would say is pretty durable but If I were a metal player I would get another guitar if I were to do ravaged stumming because I just wouldent want to ruin the guitar.

Never dealt with the company.
It was originaly my dads when he was young.

Overall This guitar Is verry good and verry bad.
It Is beautiful With clean chords but bad with distortion
It has a beautiful body but is quite heavy
Has a neck that is hard to slide up and down

heres a basic chart comparing This guitar with A gibson les paul in quality.



Les paul Custom stereo
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Clean Distortion Clean Distortion

My Phil Manning is a 1974-75 Custom Stereo, totally original and in fantastic condition for it's age. As in the review before mine, the body is of Queensland Sassafras (Aus Mahogany, I guess) with a Canadian Maple neck.

Unlike all other Phil Manning Customs I've seen, mine has a Rosewood fretboard, instead of Ebony. Apparently Maton used whatever material was around at the time, as a friend of mine has a Phil Manning Std with Ebony. The colour of my guitar is wine red, with what looks like fake wood grain painted on underneath! (looks way cool)

The body is a work of art, which an great cutway behind the heel, and wooden inserts where the body has been hollowed out. The only plastic on this guitar is the pickup surrounds and the truss rod cover!

The pickups are Maton Humbuckers which have the full Stereo switching system. Although there are a lot of knobs and switches, it's really easy to use. There is a rotary knob next to the pickup selector. In the first position, it acts as a bass boost, which works well for clean Jazzy sounds, but distorted is a bit too much. Middle position is standard setting, and the last position converts both pickups to single coil.

The pickups have micro switches next to them to convert them individually to single coils. The Bridge pickup has a second switch which converts the pickups to out of phase (as per Peter Green) but this only works when both pickups are in humbucker mode.

There is a master volume, plus individual volumes & tones for the pickups. The last switch allows you to pick which output the signal is going through. ie. if you're plugge dinto 2 amps, pos. 1 is amp 1, pos 2 is both amps and pos 3 is amp 2.

These pickups are fanastic. Really sparkly highs with not too much output to make your amp kill itself. Very vintage sounding. I love the neck set as a single coil. When I see one of these guitars come up for sale with the pickups replaced, I almost cry...

This thing plugged into 2 amps is a monster. The best is a nice Marshall with a Vox or Fender Twin.

The bass boost is pretty useless in overdriven settings though.

The best neck ever. Slim but not too small, with a slightly narrow fretboard width. Better than any Gibson neck I've played.

The finish on this guitar is fanastic. When this came out, they were just as expensive as a Les Paul Custom, and the quality really shows. It feels like a handmade Custom guitar from the 70's...

This is a well built guitar, that could easily be gigged. The finish is quite soft and does dent easily, so a little care has to be taken. It stays in tune great, as it's fitted with Grover pegs (not std), and I've only broken one string one it.

Never dealt with Maton. From what I've heard, they're great people to deal with.

I really love this guitar. I've owned 4 Les Pauls and this kills them all. As Maton has made a comeback in the last few years, I think people will realise how great these Phil Manning's are. I have 3 mates who also own one of these beats.

This is about the Maton Phil Manning Stereo Custom with the serial number 001

At all there were 252 made in Australia between 1974-1977.

Body: Carvetop, solid body of solid mahogany
and two large apertures (with covers of
pale wood) at the back where you can reach the
whole electric. White bindings.
Finish: Natural with clear varnish
Style: single cutaway
Veneer: Mahogany
Neck: Canadian white maple
Fingerboard: Ebony
Inlays: Block inlays
Bridge: fully adjustable stop tailpiece
Special Features: Stereo Outputs
# of frets: 24
Neck/Scale: Thin/18,3" scale with Maton's exclusive "Double
Thrust" Truss Rod
Controls: 2x volume
2x tone
2x 2-way lever to split each humbucker
1x 2-way lever to select the phase ( in or out of
phase)
1x master volume
1x 3-way output toggle switch (right/both/left)
1x 3-way pu select toggle switch (neck/both/bridge)
1x 3-way rotary tone selector (bass/normal/
complete single pole)
Pickups: I bought it with DiMarzio Super2 installed.
Unfortunately nobody can tell me which were the
original pu's.
Tuners: Schaller (not original)
Case: Original hardcase (brown leather case with
orange inlay

I bought this beauty as a wreck! Nothing was working and all original parts were gone. The only thing I still had were the broken pu frames, new potis, new gibson knobs and a few non original 2 way toggle switches. After getting on the nerves of maton guitars (no schematics for this babe available anymore), phil manning (who really helped me for restaurate the guitar), my local music store and a few engineers it is running in the end.

I'm using the PM1 in an alternative Punk/Rock band and I tell you, it really fits to every sound!
You've got so many alternatives to configure the pu's. It's really awesome, with the DiMarzio Super2 you've got the range from clear single coil sound to really fat humbucking.
The only disadvantage is that you've got to train the handling of all the switches when you want to change your sound or you just use the tone selector.

As I wrote, I bought her as a wreck. She was dirty, had a few dongs at the scale and the body and you still can't read the model name.
But the maton writing is still sharp as a knife and the frets nearly unused.
After a few hours of cleaning it, installing the original switches and giving her lucent knobs she's a real eye-catcher.
The PM1 is not heavy as a les paul but also not to lightweighted.
She wears like a part of the body and playing on her is like dancing tango.

If you don't crash her you can depend on her, the vw beetle of the guitars, she plays and plays and plays.
If my strings would be so certain like this guitar I wouldn't have to carry another with me.

Maton really cares about their customers. I got really help from them although the guitar discontinued 26 years ago.

This guitar is in competition with an ampeg amg-1 and an ovation uk2 and everytime I have a gig or I'm going to the sessions I'm gambling if I should use the maton or the ovation. hard fight, I really can tell you.
I would never sell this guitar and not only cause of it's serial number 001. She is beautiful,kewl, she rocks and you can keep the mouths of the other guitarists open.
And with the small amount of this guitars this is the way of exclusivness I prefer ;-)