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Maton Mastersound Electric 12
String Guitar |
I was born in the second year of Maton Guitars production (1947) and made my first guitar in 1965. I phoned Maton from Mildura, spoke to Bill May (Maton founder) and purchased the wood, fret wire and hardware for my guitar from him, so it's a buzz to have the privilege to review the Maton Mastersound 12 string.
As a guitar maker and player, I've had a forty year love/ hate relationship with 12 string guitars. Whether they're acoustics or solid body electrics (and even more rare) they always seemed either way too bright or way too mushy and that includes some famous brand names in both categories.
O.K. then, lets get to the point! If you're going to buy a guitar, it's got to look good, feel good and sound good and in that order! The Mastersound 12 does this in spades! You couldn't ask for a better ex. factory set-up and the first things you notice (after the look and feel ) is the ease of playing and the acoustic clarity of the guitar. Plugged in and amped up the result was pretty well what I expected.
The pickups are nice and quiet (from noise), well balanced and had the clarity needed for a 12 string. I particularly liked the balance between the dual coil and single coil split available on the bridge pickup. With the bridge pickup in humbucker (dual coil) mode it matches up well l in volume compared to the neck pickup, but more importantly the single coil mode is still up there in volume - a lot of dual mode pickups just drop out at this stage.
The controls are basic Mastersound; master volume, master tone, three way rotary pickup selector and a sliding coil tap switch for the bridge pickup. The creme radio style control knobs and the rotary selector with bar (and cool, midway and hi-fi written on the bezel) give a nice 50s retro vibe to the instrument. Call me a fuss pot, but I reckon there should be another star washer on the pots so the knobs sit as close to the top of the guitar as possible. This small oversight occurs on so many guitars and it bugs me!
Weighing in at 3 kg. the Mastersound hangs quite nicely. Whilst the standard 6 string Mastersound is a full solid body design, the 12 string version has a large cavity rout on the bass side of the body, compensating for the extra weight of a 12 string headstock and maintaining a well balanced feel. The Queensland Maple body is beautifully finished in a translucent Ultra Blue colour with a white binding (Cherry red model pictured), just to the top.
The Maton strap pins are neat - the outside flange is about 3 mm. larger in diameter than standard, making it a lot less likely for the guitar to drop off a worn old strap - probably the most common cause of guitar accidents.
The 21 fret Queensland Maple neck has the usual Maton slick, comfortable feel with an Ebony fingerboard with Mother of Pearl Block inlays and Dunlop 6130 Jumbo frets and a 300 mm. (12 inch) radius curvature. A 42.5 mm. nut width is as narrow as you'd ever want on a 12 string but even with my monster hands, it didn't feel too cramped. Individual Grover mini machines complete the job.
At 622 mm. (24.5 inch) the fingerboard scale is a touch shorter than most but ideal for a 12 string guitar and with .010" to .046" strings this is a really easy 12 string to play.
Priced at $1,999.00 and due for release in early April, the Maton Mastersound 12 string Electric is bound to be a hit with 12 string enthusiasts and may well help in producing some new 12 string players. When I asked Anthony Knowles of Maton who the heck plays an electric 12 string, he assured me they wouldn't be making hundreds of these but the simple reason for developing it was in response to requests from the likes of Powderfinger, Silverchair, Colin Hay, Andy White, Jimmy Barnes, Josh Homme and others.
So, while Australia is not a big market and the market for an electric 12 string is even smaller, it's good to see Australia's oldest and largest guitar making firm responding to customer requests.