Maverick F2 Reviews 4

I bought this guitar at Electro Music in Doncaster (UK), a shop I'd recommend to almost any musician, but especially a guitarist. The price was £599, which is the UK rrp I think. I went in there very much wanting to like this guitar, having checked it out on Maverick's website, and when I plugged in and played it I was not disappointed. Very stylised (yet still tasteful) body contours and the Evolution tone controls make it look the bollocks, and the Duncan Designed tapped humbuckers make it sound awesome too.

Super slim neck with a very comfortable and beautifully curved profile, much better than an Ibanez Wizard neck, which feels to me like playing one of the wooden slats from my bed base! The Evolution tone controls are a little weird at first, but once you get used to them are a very nice feature, and the way they are recessed into the body makes them difficult to knock out of position when playing. The wiring set-up is fantastic. The series and parallel bridge settings make for different tonal qualities, but still retaining the hard edge that we expect from the bridge pickup. The middle setting is the classic Les Paul middle setting with both humbuckers together. The 4th position is the inner single coils out of phase, which makes for some fantastic blues type tones out of what primarily seems to be a shredder's guitar, and finally there's the magical neck humbucker...it somehow seems to make everyone who plays on it sound twice as good as they really are!

I have had one big problem with this guitar. I like a very low 'shred' action, about 1.5mm, and this guitar could not hack that when I bought it, it was buzzing horribly and I lost so much sustain and tone... I have had the frets redressed to accomodate this type of action, and it's great now, but I can't help but feel that a guitar which is going for the Ibanez/Jackson type market should not have presented me with a problem like this...I may just have been unlucky with this particular guitar, but if you like this type of very low action, you need to check this out and if you find the same problem you need to consider this factor when making your decision to buy. I have no other complaint other than a slightly noisy volume control, which was very easily sorted out.

The two-piece body is jointed virtually seamlessly in the centre, and the heel joint is very well thought out, so you don't suddenly run into a huge square obstacle when moving onto the upper frets. The neck is probably the best I've ever played...beautifully slim and wonderfully curved, and the headstock is againt joined seamlessly onto the end... The finish is wonderful, I went for the tobacco sunburst option, but it's not like the horrible poo colour on a Fender Tobacco burst, it's more like a rich, brown, reddy orange...

I'm in love with this guitar... she sounds so much better than an Ibanez would, and feels better too, she's capable of all the different tones I like to use, and now that she's had her plastic surgery, she has just the kind of action I like. Note for Kerry King worshippers: This model is a hardtail, if you want a Floyd you need to get an F1 or F3, but they won't have the tonal options this one does!

TimofDeath rated this unit 4 on 2003-11-06.

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