El Maya Guitars

Flanging_Fred

The other day a guitar popped up on eBay, an El Maya EM1200. Early eighties Japanese, built to what looked like a very high standard. I totally fell in love with it and was going to bid for it.

And then it disappeared. No doubt someone put in an unofficial buy-it-now offer. Mightily grumpy I was.

So has anyone had any experience of these El Maya guitars, @sarge ? Their unusual appearance was very much up my street.

This is the em-1200.

https://goo.gl/images/9WOIpV

impmann

I remember those from my youth.

I had an El Maya Strat, sadly with a stuck truss rod, that was a through neck with Walnut sides. It weighed *A LOT* and I think it had DiMarzio pickups (or good copies thereof). I sold it about 20 years ago, though and I don't think I've ever seen another like it...

Sarge

I had an ElMaya very early doors, but without any other ID bar the headstock logo, it must have been very much bottom of the range as it was pretty naff, all others I've seen were superb! 

dogload

I remember those EM-1200s (though I didn't know that's what they were called). Gorgeous and quite individual. I'm sure I saw something about El Mayas recently... maybe on the OSG Forum.I think someone was selling one. Or I may have been under heavy sedation. I'll check later. 

Edit: Must have dreamt it!

Chalky

I tried one in Wunjo's or similar, an ES175 copy. Vintage Japanese I was told. Played and sounded like Vintage Japanese rubbish. I had a £150 Vintage-brand 175 copy at the time and that was much better quality.

Barrivee

I had an El Maya EB2000 bass and a Maya Strat in, I think, the very early 80's, might have been late 70's. I don't know, I was enjoying myself a bit too much. The Strat was pretty good but the El Maya bass was fantastic, in build and sound quality. So much so that I had a pro player make me an offer I couldn't refuse for it. As ever, it's something I wish I'd never sold, along with the Marshall and Sessionette I had around the same time. If I remember correctly the El Maya's were the upmarket versions, the Maya's were a bit cheaper. 

vinnie1971

I have an El Maya EM1300.
It is the BEST quality guitar I have ever played in over 30 years of playing
Its a solid mahogany body arched topped like a Les Paul with the following features:
straight through maple neck with mahagony skunk stripe, self locking modern schaller tuners with deluxe style string lock
string through body
strat style hard tail bridge
brass nut, brass saddles, brass ferrules
the pots looked exactly like full size alpha pots not the usual flimsy things on epiphines or mini pots.
all the hardware is gold plated.
mines a 1970s guitar I bought it mid 1980s as a kid after saving up £239 on my summer job (where it was reduced from £279 back then that was a heck of a lot for a guitar) it had sat in the music shop for £10 years. Gradually the price came down until I saw it and played it. 

It was made in Kobe Japan, these have no relation to Maya guitars which are cheap and from another factory entirely with their own pickups. The pickups in my guitar are OEM DiMarzio pickups, at first I thought they were Superdistortions but sound too bright for those and have it confirmed that they are early DiMarzio Super 2 pickups - using the same single core hookup as the 1st generation Superdistortions (where single core is hit and the outer braid is ground)

a couple of luthiers i have seen it, one did a set up before I learned how to do that stuff and he said this:
In all his years as a guitar tech, he has never encountered such a fine electric guitar, if o ever thought about selling it, his first advice was don't as I would never find the like again and I would need to spend thousands of pounds getting a USA Gibson Les Paul to come close. And second if I really did want to sell it, sell it to him as he really liked it and would actually pay decent money for such a rare unknown beast.

its the nicest playing guitar, the finish even after the 30 years I had it even as a gigging guitar is amazing.
i don't like the DiMarzios they are very high gain so I swapped out the oversize ceramic magnets for ALNICO 2 which hits the blues/classic rock vibe I want,  but may end up putting Seymour Duncan Pearly Gates in it.

if you ever find one, they occasionally pop up on eBay between £500 and a grand, snap it up.

Flanging_Fred

Thanks for the info, when I saw the one on eBay, it was pretty obvious from the photos that us was really high quality. It was on for£150 and after a couple if days, the auction was pulled.  No doubt someone knew what it was and offered an out of eBay deal.

Alan K

I have an El Maya EM1000 exactly the same shape as the EM1200 / EM1300 but finshed in gloss black laquer with cream binding, unlike the others the EM1000 has a 4 screw bolt on neck but much the same in other respects, mahogany body & neck.. It's probably one of the most comfortable guitars I've ever played and has a great feel to it. It's quite like a Les Paul to play but a bit brighter and jazz-ier sounding, great guitars built in Kobe, Japan late 70's / early 80's. These have become a rare find now.

Alan K

An El Maya EM1000.

vinnie1971

Update on EM1300
turns out my luthier was wrong about the pickups.
they are Maxon pickups - Maxon did for a while stamp DiMarzio pickups with a Maxon serial number and they would say dimarzio made in USA stamped with Maxon serial number.

So it looks like mine are clones of DiMarzio Super 2 - they are constructed in exactly the same way. (Possibly mine are Maxon V1 or Maxon Super 88 which explains the brown bobbins)

There was also a super distortion clone , the V2 some of which were actual DiMarzio Superdistortion stamped with the original DiMarzio marks plus the Maxon serial number.

i don't actually like the pickups in mine - the wind and giant ceramic magnet while great for saturated gain and rich harmonics sound sterile, harsh and clunky clean.

Super 70 pickups are legend, they were the gap filler between PAF and super distortion and super 2 pickups using alnico 8 magnets. 
Super 58s are PAF clones using alnico III magnets 

http://www.liquisearch.com/maxon_effects/pickups/pickup_serial_numbers

vinnie1971

Here's my El Maya EM1300 played clean 

vinnie1971

And again this time with guitar solo at the start and 3rd verse alnico 4 in the neck and alnico 8 in the bridge with rhythm guitar and incidental lead guitar having alnico 2 magnets do the tone difference, while subtle can still be heard:

Teacherphil

I had a thru neck strat made from 5 woods sandwiched together. Brass nut. It looked amazing and played ok but nothing special. Never managed to find pickups I liked in it. Sold it on ebay about 10 years ago. Kind of wish I'd kept it.

Ancient_Mariner

I had one just like Vinnie's in the early 80's - think I got mine for £150 down from £200 at Neils guitar workshop in Thornton Heath near Croydon in probably '82 or '83. Unfortunately we needed money badly & I had to sell it after a couple of years to stay debt-free.

Mine had what I now realise was a binding nut, and tuning stability was a real problem. I'd no idea then, and just put up with tuning continually depending on whether I was playing rhythm or lead (lots of bent strings sent it flat).

Alan K

This is the neck pickup from my El Maya Em1000. Looks a fair bit like a Dimarzio super 2 but just has 313826 stamped on it (Brass plate with 4 screws). I know that this is the original pickup. Any ideas what pickup this is? Many thanks. Sorry but unable to attach the actual picture? :-)

dparrent339

Anyone familiar with an El Maya Jackson RR1 copy? I've owned one for 12 years, no info or another one like it 

Flanging_Fred

dparrent339 said:

Anyone familiar with an El Maya Jackson RR1 copy? I've owned one for 12 years, no info or another one like it 

Nope, but Id love to see a photo.  Is it a Maya or an El Maya? The seems to be quite a considerable difference in quality between the two from what I can make out.