SC-450Plus LD Vintage Series : Belle of the Ball

Recently a guy said to me "Why does everyone call their guitar 'Belle' after Beauty & The Beast? Well, I really don't know about the general logic there, but the reason I called my Harley Benton SC-450+ 'Belle' is simple. She's a Lemon Drop. With a beautiful, almost bookmatched flame top. She's gorgeous. What name could be more fitting than the one that compares her with Belle, in her perfect yellow ball gown? Precisely.

For clarity - short summary of this review - WOW!!!

Now to get a little more objective - although, as you will know, reading this review, the love of a guitar is a very subjective thing and it's very hard to appreciate what a guitar is all about just by viewing some general pics or reading specs - tantalising as they might be.

So - let's get the bad points out of the way first. I'll talk about my Belle, as she is my First Harley Benton.

** She comes with tarnished strings. "They all do". Put some new strings of your favourite gauge on. Not a big problem (check the price).

** She comes with a dry fretboard. "They all do". Just use some lemon oil and make her shine...

** She has one slightly cracked control knob. Ever so slight - can hardly see it and doesn't affect operation at all.

** She has a tiny, tiny faint white spot under the lacquer near the pickup switch. You need to be about 10cm away or closer to see this.

** Her tuners don't feel as positive as they could - but they still work fine. Just 'tune up', as you should do; no problems.

** The control cavity covers are made of that 'hard' plastic that could shatter (I think), given a hard smack. But they work fine - they're not thin - just don't give them a hard smack.

** The jack socket plate is again a bit low rent plastic - but from a distance it looks fine and doesn't cause me any concern. Remember, we're talking about a 158 Euro guitar here... it does the job.

** The D string is cut a bit lower in the nut than it should be. This could be concerning - but it actually causes no problems and doesn't affect feel. I'm talking maybe 0.1mm.

** For me - the biggest flaw is with the pickguard. Reason Number 1 - it's one ply and made from that flimsy plastic again. Reason Number 2 - it doesn't look great (although the antiqued cream looks fine). Reason Number 3 - the worst bit - it covers up the magnificent flame top! First job - remove the pickguard. What a difference :-)

And that's it for the bad things. So...to the good points;

** Beautiful finish. I mean - it's practically flawless. I've been over it with a fine toothcomb.

** Great flame top - not bookmatched, but very close. Very even, very fine. It's gorgeous.

** Great sunburst - not too much - I find some bursts get too dark near to the edge, so you lose the flame. Not on this baby - just a subtle shading. Looks awesome.

** Neck - is as straight as can be. Now - I've checked and there are some frets that, ideally, could do with some attention. I will be levelling the frets at some point. BUT - out of the box, with the tarnished strings; once tuned - she had a great action. I must confess I didn't measure it, but it felt fine. It was about 2mm, I guess. NO fret buzz anywhere.

** Fret ends - are nigh on perfect. They're a little high, rather than sloping, but none of them catch when you rub your hand up and down and the neck feels great.

** Intonation almost perfect out of the box - check out my other review of the tc Polytune Clip. Awesome piece of kit.

** The Important Bit - as the neck felt so good, I decided to lower the strings. I got them down to 1.1mm at the 12th fret. Still played great. I mean - this guitar costs 158 Euros. It's made out of Mahogany, Maple, Rosewood (but not for much longer, with CITES legislation) and plays just AWESOME! Get this - I then proceeded to lower it some more. Down to 0.9mm (I use feeler gauges). This was the first time I heard a little bit of fret buzz. Still no notes choking - just a bit of buzz. This will be sorted out when I level the frets. If you like a high action - nothing wrong in that - but if you like a low action as I do - it's easily the best action on the most playable guitar I've had the fortune to try out. And it will be better.... but it's so good out of the box!

** As far as I can tell - and I had to look *very* closely indeed - the body is made out of just two pieces of Mahogany. In fact, I thought it was a single piece for starters, but I knew that was unlikely, so looked a bit harder. The tell tale part is in the horn. Really - you can hardly tell from the back. Front - beautiful. Back - beautiful.

** The pickups. OK, they're pretty low output, mellow humbuckers. they're really made for bluesy, low key rock sounds. Essentially - think Gary Moore and you're not far wrong. Which is precisely what I was looking for. (If you want Slash - get a SC-550)

** The pickups also coil split. "What?!" you might say - "On a Les Paul?!!" Well, yes... you may not particularly like the single coil sound (I'm not a fan) and I wasn't sure what this feature would be like, or if I would even use it. Well....if you coil split one of them and mix it in with the other - you know, by turning those volume and tone knobs, like most folk normally don't - personally I came across a lovely sound! So experiment. I *may* install a Jimmy Page setup sometime, so as well as the coil splits I also have out of phase and series/parallel. But we shall see - there are already so many tones to keep me going.

Caveat - the knobs are quite tricky to pull up, being witches' hats - it's best to just pop a bit of finger/thumb under the knob to help lift it. But they're solid enough...that's just the style of the knobs.

** One last thing I nearly forgot - the control cavities are actually finished quite nicely! Still a few rough edges, but no splinters of wood or anything - just shows attention to detail; even at this price point (they're not shielded, though..but they are lacquered.)

Well - I think that's about it. I thought long and hard about buying a Harley Benton - I'm not saying that every guitar will be as good as my Belle, but from what others have been saying, the quality's getting better and better all the time and I tell you, you would be hard pushed to buy *any* guitar up to maybe 500 Euros (or more!) that would compare with this one! OK, the humbuckers are a little weak - but I personally like them. I can see they're not as precise as some, but they're perfectly usable, get a great tone - and - for goodness' sake - ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY-EIGHT EUROS!

Yes, some corners have been cut, to get to that price - but everything still functions as it should, it looks amazing and it plays beautifully.

I know the flame top is a relatively thin veneer - but then again, it sits on a maple cap over a mahogany body - all traditional Les Paul stuff - and the flame looks gorgeous! It doesn't matter how thick it is as long as you don't 'ding' it - just don't ding it. It doesn't affect the tone.

Bottom line - if you don't care about the 'name' (it doesn't say 'Gibson' on the headstock) - you'll look amazing, you'll feel amazing - and you'll have saved boatloads of money. I really can't recommend this guitar enough. Back in 1979 I bought a 'Super Strat copy' (an El Maya) for £260. Took me six weeks working in the holiday to muster the cash. Adjusted for inflation, that would be around £1,000 today. Straight through neck, very solid, well specced - great guitar........ but this Harley Benton blows that strat away. No question. And when I've done a full fret dressing and polished the frets and oiled the fingerboard - just try prising her out of my hands :-D