Mayones Regius Review

Mayones Regius Review

I chose to buy this guitar because I was in the mood for a Mayones suitable for low tuned metal.  What better than a fanned fret guitar loaded with a delicious set of Bare Knuckle Pickups?  Our Mayones Regius review will cover the features you would find on a guitar like this, the tone, and build quality.

I decided to purchase this guitar after much deliberation from a friend of mine on the Wired Guitarist Gear Exchange, who happen to be selling it alongside an 8 string fanned fret Mayones.  I’m not much of an 8 string player so opted for his 7 string.  He hooked me up with a great price, especially given it had barely been used, so why not right?

Features:

This guitar is fully loaded…

• It has korina wings, with Mayones tonally enhanced wood . Tonally enhanced wood has been processed with a strict combination of pressure, humidity, and temperature for better stability and resonance.
• Gorgeous 5A maple top option with a very well executed transparent violet jean finish.
• The neck is the exotic II option, which means it is made up of 11 pieces of wenge, mahogany, padouk and maple.
• Carbon reinforcement in the neck so it never shifts. This thing arrived from Greece to my house in Canada without any shift in the neck, it was perfectly straight on arrival.
• Birdseye maple fretboard.
• Stainless steel frets.  In my opinion, it’s a little silly not to opt for stainless steel frets on a guitar when you have the option to do so.  They last forever, meaning you don’t have to worry about wearing them down, and they are super easy to bend on.
• Offset dots with luminlay side dots.
• Custom black/cream/black binding.
• BKP painkillers with gold screws and a coil tap.
• Sperzel locking tuners.
• Schaller straplocks.
• 25.4” to 27” fan.  For my uses, this length is pefect because I don’t tune my 7 strings below Ab.

Tone:

This Mayones Regius was exactly what I expected in terms of tone.  The fanned frets meant that the low end stayed clear and I was able to string it up in drop Ab without having to use excessively thick strings.  I’m not a fan of how muddy guitars start sounding when you use thicker string gauges, and using a guitar with a longer scale length is a great way to get around that.

The BKP Painkillers I have had before in multiple guitars.  I don’t find them great for genres other than metal.  Don’t get me wrong, they can definitely do other genres, but they aren’t my first choice for that.  If you’re a fan of djent or metal with a grindier tone and lots of upper mids, then you’ll dig these pickups as they have upper mids in spades.  They can also do that cold clean sound very well.  If I replaced the pickups, I would probably opt for a BKP VHII with a ceramic nailbomb.

The rig I used with this guitar was a Fractal Audio Axe FX into a Matrix power amp and VHT cabinet.  The combination is great, and worked well with the Mayones Regius.

Build Quality:

In my opinion, having owned many Manyones, the build quality is very good.  They never have the usual sloppy glue around the nut like you find on some supposedly high end guitars.  I have never experienced anything short of amazing fretwork with the four or five Regius models I’ve owned.  This one is no exception!  One of my favorite things is the attention to detail in the binding work, as well as the control cavity.  Nobody ever looks in the control cavity but if you peek into a Mayones, you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

Final Verdict:

If you’re looking for a budget guitar or custom shop instrument, Mayones isn’t it.  Their other models like the Setius and Duvell are less expensive but the Regius, but not cheap by any means.  That being said, if you’re ready to go all out and get an amazing guitar that competes in terms of overall build quality with brands like PRS, Huber, etc… then a Mayones is it.  I have always thought of them as a “metal” version of PRS, and they do that very well.  If this guitar was stolen I would definitely order another one.

So, how would I score this purple monster?

Oh, and if you want your dream Mayones, our team at Wired Guitarist can help you with that because we’re fully authorized Mayones dealers now!  Click here to view our Mayones.

Of course, what would this review be without pictures?  Here you go: