TheBloodstained
Casual music entusiast
They say curiosity killed the cat... never mind the cat! It's killing my wallet! 
I've been curious about Harley Benton guitars for a good while now. I've heard mixed things about them - some people seems to really admire and recommend them, while others seem to have different experiences with everything from bad frets and construction flaws to faulty electronics and tuning stability issues.
I know my way around guitars enough to where I can do basic setup and repairs myself, so I was not too worried about many of the qualms that people seemed to have. The biggest dealbreaker for me would be unmanageable bad frets.
So yeah, I've been looking on and off on different Harley Benton models to satisfy my curiosity. In late november/early december 2023 I started missing having an 8 string in my collection again. I used to own an Ibanez RG2228, which was a brilliant guitar in every way except that I never really "connected" with it, so I ended up selling it.
You all probably know how it goes... I started looking at what was available on the market - both new and used. There was a couple of guitars that I almost bought, including a green B-stock version of the Harley Benton I ended up buying.
The one I ended up buying was a suspiciously cheap B-stock Harley Benton directly from Thomann. For the price I paid I was half expecting the guitar to come with some severe flaws, but I decided to take the chance. There's always the option to return it, if it turned out to be awful.
Let's begin with some pictures
Now, the guitar is solid. I went over the entire thing a couple of times when I received it, and I couldn't find any flaws in the construction. There's two minor finish blemishes - one on the back of the neck and one on the side of the body - but those doesn't bother me at all. If anything I actually think that they add some character to this budget axe.
The satin finish is beautiful and incredibly smooth. I recently acquired a Schecter Banshee Mach-7 and the finish on this Harley Benton rivals the finish on the Schecter, almost surpassing it in smoothness. Will be exciting to see how the HB finish holds up over time.
All the hardware seems to work as expected. The individual bridge saddles is a nice touch, and I have been tweaking the string height without any problem. The volume and tone pots has a nice feel to them with a lovely amount of resistance when turning the pots. They actually feel like the pots that were in my RG2228.
The tuners are Harley Benton's own locking tuners. I can't speak for the locking part yet, but the tuners themselves seems to work as expected. I have had a little tuning instability so far, but I can't tell whether that's from the strings stretching or from the hardware being unstable.
Pickups was a pleasant surprise for me. I get great tones out of the box, and did a little test recording where I got some of the best 8-string tones I've achieve thus far for my demos. I must admit that I'm tempted to upgrade with active pickups, but so far the stock pickups is more than usable for me.
The bad stuff...
The fretboard is DRY. Like... Sahara desert levels of dry. I need to get my hands of some lemon oil at some point. That will probably darken it a bit too.
The neck feels fat! Like oldschool Schecter fat. Only... it isn't?
I think it's a neck profile thing. I've been playing mostly on thin and fast necks the last couple of years, and the only other 8-string experience I have is from the aforementioned RG2228 I had, which have a typical wizard-ish Ibanez neck.
The neck on this feels fat, and it took some getting used to, but it's actually fine. I have small hands and can play this guitar without any problems or straining. I wouldn't go as far as calling it comfortable, but for some reason it just works for me. After adjusting to it I find myself noodling as usual without thinking about it.
The electronics are NOISY. I was only able to record a demo track by using an aggressive noise gate. I do have a pretty good idea about what's wrong though, so I'm not too worried about it. Apparently a lot of these guitars have various grounding issues from the factory, and that's something I can take care of by myself. I think I'm going to go through all the electronics and do some proper shielding of everything.
The frets are kind of rough. They seem to be level though, so I'm not too worried. Doing bends feels a bit funny, but it hasn't been a hindrance in any way, and I'm mostly riffing anyway, so it's all good. Might try to give the frets a polish at some point - or get the frets replaced with stainless steel frets!
So yeah, to sum it up...
I got a really cheap new toy which is really solid for an instrument in this price range. It's playable out of the box, but did come with some minor flaws which needs to be addressed at some point. Nothing critical though, but if you are a beginner with no experience about guitars and setups, then it could easily become a bad experience buying one of these.
Me, I'm more than satisfied with me purchase. I got a great looking, great sounded, playable instrument on a budget. I recon this will be a serious Schecter rival once I'm done tweaking the setup.
There's a couple of upgrades I've thought about doing at some point (depending on what it would cost):
- Better tuners. Andrew Baena fitted one of these with Graph Tech, but those are way to expensive. I'm thinking Gotoh.
- EMG 909's w. 18v mod
- Gold hardware swab (don't judge me! I'm well aware that I have lousy taste! )
...I guess I'll start with a fatter bottom string and go from there!
I've been curious about Harley Benton guitars for a good while now. I've heard mixed things about them - some people seems to really admire and recommend them, while others seem to have different experiences with everything from bad frets and construction flaws to faulty electronics and tuning stability issues.
I know my way around guitars enough to where I can do basic setup and repairs myself, so I was not too worried about many of the qualms that people seemed to have. The biggest dealbreaker for me would be unmanageable bad frets.
So yeah, I've been looking on and off on different Harley Benton models to satisfy my curiosity. In late november/early december 2023 I started missing having an 8 string in my collection again. I used to own an Ibanez RG2228, which was a brilliant guitar in every way except that I never really "connected" with it, so I ended up selling it.
You all probably know how it goes... I started looking at what was available on the market - both new and used. There was a couple of guitars that I almost bought, including a green B-stock version of the Harley Benton I ended up buying.
The one I ended up buying was a suspiciously cheap B-stock Harley Benton directly from Thomann. For the price I paid I was half expecting the guitar to come with some severe flaws, but I decided to take the chance. There's always the option to return it, if it turned out to be awful.
Let's begin with some pictures
Now, the guitar is solid. I went over the entire thing a couple of times when I received it, and I couldn't find any flaws in the construction. There's two minor finish blemishes - one on the back of the neck and one on the side of the body - but those doesn't bother me at all. If anything I actually think that they add some character to this budget axe.
The satin finish is beautiful and incredibly smooth. I recently acquired a Schecter Banshee Mach-7 and the finish on this Harley Benton rivals the finish on the Schecter, almost surpassing it in smoothness. Will be exciting to see how the HB finish holds up over time.
All the hardware seems to work as expected. The individual bridge saddles is a nice touch, and I have been tweaking the string height without any problem. The volume and tone pots has a nice feel to them with a lovely amount of resistance when turning the pots. They actually feel like the pots that were in my RG2228.
The tuners are Harley Benton's own locking tuners. I can't speak for the locking part yet, but the tuners themselves seems to work as expected. I have had a little tuning instability so far, but I can't tell whether that's from the strings stretching or from the hardware being unstable.
Pickups was a pleasant surprise for me. I get great tones out of the box, and did a little test recording where I got some of the best 8-string tones I've achieve thus far for my demos. I must admit that I'm tempted to upgrade with active pickups, but so far the stock pickups is more than usable for me.
The bad stuff...
The fretboard is DRY. Like... Sahara desert levels of dry. I need to get my hands of some lemon oil at some point. That will probably darken it a bit too.
The neck feels fat! Like oldschool Schecter fat. Only... it isn't?
I think it's a neck profile thing. I've been playing mostly on thin and fast necks the last couple of years, and the only other 8-string experience I have is from the aforementioned RG2228 I had, which have a typical wizard-ish Ibanez neck.
The neck on this feels fat, and it took some getting used to, but it's actually fine. I have small hands and can play this guitar without any problems or straining. I wouldn't go as far as calling it comfortable, but for some reason it just works for me. After adjusting to it I find myself noodling as usual without thinking about it.
The electronics are NOISY. I was only able to record a demo track by using an aggressive noise gate. I do have a pretty good idea about what's wrong though, so I'm not too worried about it. Apparently a lot of these guitars have various grounding issues from the factory, and that's something I can take care of by myself. I think I'm going to go through all the electronics and do some proper shielding of everything.
The frets are kind of rough. They seem to be level though, so I'm not too worried. Doing bends feels a bit funny, but it hasn't been a hindrance in any way, and I'm mostly riffing anyway, so it's all good. Might try to give the frets a polish at some point - or get the frets replaced with stainless steel frets!
So yeah, to sum it up...
I got a really cheap new toy which is really solid for an instrument in this price range. It's playable out of the box, but did come with some minor flaws which needs to be addressed at some point. Nothing critical though, but if you are a beginner with no experience about guitars and setups, then it could easily become a bad experience buying one of these.
Me, I'm more than satisfied with me purchase. I got a great looking, great sounded, playable instrument on a budget. I recon this will be a serious Schecter rival once I'm done tweaking the setup.
There's a couple of upgrades I've thought about doing at some point (depending on what it would cost):
- Better tuners. Andrew Baena fitted one of these with Graph Tech, but those are way to expensive. I'm thinking Gotoh.
- EMG 909's w. 18v mod
- Gold hardware swab (don't judge me! I'm well aware that I have lousy taste!
)...I guess I'll start with a fatter bottom string and go from there!
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