Mayones guitars have gained in popularity exponentially in the last few years, particularly among the metal community. Their boutique custom guitars are built to the highest of quality standards and have essentially unlimited combinations of features available. Mayones have stepped it up a notch this year and premiered the Hydra Elite: Mayones’ first headless model. We were lucky enough to play one of the prototypes at NAMM and decided to do a review!

Without further ado, here is our review of the new Mayones Hydra Elite 6:

Features:

  • Mahogany Sapele Body
  • Eye Poplar Top
  • 5-Piece Bubinga/Wenge Bolt-On Neck
  • Ebony Fretboard
  • 24 XJ Stainless Steel Frets
  • 25.4″ Scale
  • 16″ Radius
  • ABM Single Fine Tuner Bridge
  • Schaller Security Straplocks
  • Seymour Duncan Nazgul/Sentient Pickups
  • 1x Volume Knob with Push/Pull for Coil Split
  • 3-Way Pickup Selector Switch
  • Graph Tech Black TUSQ Nut

On top of the beautifully figured and naturally bound Eye Poplar top of the Hydra, it featured a really attractive cut of Mahogany on the back. Ebony was the perfect choice to accompany the Eye Poplar top as well.

On the end of the neck, where a headstock would be, is what Mayones is calling an S-CLAMP Headless Element. It’s a protective, stainless steel heel that features a Mayones logo.

Speaking of heels, goodness me, the neck heel of this guitar features one of the most comfortable contours for upper-fret access that I have ever played. The neck itself is quite thin and plays effortlessly. It’s more akin to an Ibanez profile and is perfect for the shredder. The super comfy lead playing is also thanks to the flatter fretboard radius.

Mayones Hydra Elite

Mayones Headless

Tone:

The second I picked up this guitar I was in love. The natural, warm sound of Mahogany produces an unmatched resonance when strummed acoustically. Sometimes, Mahogany can become a bit muddy in the low end, but the bolt-on neck and Eye Poplar top help to balance this out a bit.

The pickups used for the particular model that I played was the Nazgul/Sentient set. These are really hit and miss with most players. Right off the bat, I’ll tell you that they don’t make the prettiest clean sounds. Where they fall short in clean sounds, they make up for in a massive amount of low-end punch for distorted sounds.

Open chugs have a massive growl that punches you in the face with a very responsive pick attack and the highs cut straight through the mix like butter. The stand out feature of the Nazgul is that they stay entirely controllable under extreme gain applications. It’s no surprise that many artists, such as Ola Englund, are using these so regularly!

If you want to read more about the Nazgul, go check out our full review!

Build Quality:

Being that this guitar was a prototype, I actually expected to find some flaws.

Boy, was I wrong…

4 of us tested this guitar back to back and none of us could find anything wrong with it! The fretwork was really clean with zero sharp ends, the neck was one of my favorites that I’ve played, and the finish couldn’t have been more perfect.

This guitar was seriously built without any compromise.

Final Verdict:

The Handmade, Mayones Hydra Elite 6 was one of my favorite guitars that I got to play at NAMM. I pretty much rushed straight home to write this review. It is one of the most comfortable guitars I’ve played in quite a while, it feels really solid, features some seriously beefy sounds, and looks stunning.

Something about the Hydra just felt really “together”. I’m excited to see these things start rolling out and will hopefully be picking one up for myself.
9-10-10

Don’t forget to check out our guide to Mayones guitars, as well as any other articles we post! We post reviews, technical articles, interviews, and more on a daily basis!

Don’t forget, we are authorized Mayones dealers and can set you up with the Mayones you’re looking for at the best price possible.

This article was written by Zac Buras, our editor located in Louisiana.

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