Aumann Stringed Instruments
As a former resident of Gippsland, I have a good supply of beautiful fiddleback Gippsland blackwood, and this is my favourite building material. It is very much like koa in its properties. However, I've also used a number of other woods, including Hawaiian koa, USA maple, mahogany, Tasmanian myrtle and Macassar ebony.
Many of my orders come via my website at www.myspace.com/aumannstringedinstruments and you can view some of my work there. Other orders come from word of mouth and I'm lucky to have several of my instruments in the Melbourne Ukulele Kollective.
If it is at all possible, I like to invite prospective customers to my workshop, at Heathmont, east of Melbourne CBD. Here they can choose the exact piece of wood that will become their instrument and we can discuss the finer points of the instruments, such as the rosette design, the binding, cutaway or not, pickup or not, custom inlays. A couple of months later, the customer will have a truly unique instrument.
My instruments may be found in certain music shops in Victoria and NSW. Even the instruments that I make 'on spec' will each be different from the next in terms of wood selection, binding and inlay. So each is a one-of-a-kind ukulele.
The Maton ukulele is the result of combining the best of traditional ukulele design with 21st century production techniques. This instrument draws on Maton’s extensive background in the use and fine tuning of Australian tonewoods to produce a tone which is rich, full and intriguing, and which evokes the timeless sounds of the classic Hawaiian ukuleles of time gone by.