WL-20BK Rock Series : Metal Beast

I really like this guitar. The one I received was packaged well and is a well built guitar. The maple neck is straight with no sharp frets. The guitar plays well with no dead spots on the fretboard. I actually kinda like the stock high gain ceramic pickups. I will probably replace for a set of active EMG's but they do sound pretty good- excellent to play metal or hard rock. All the controls work well. The bridge seems ok. I did replace the stock tuners with black locking tuners, but the stock tuners were not really that bad. I was expecting to mod this guitar out, but now will only make a few changes. I will put in a bone or tusq nut to replace the plastic stock one although the guitar does seem to have pretty good sustain with the plastic nut. I see no reason to swap out the electronics( except if I put in active humbuckers and will need to change the pots) or the bridge. The guitar sounds really good in my opinion. I truly believe Harley Benton stock entry-level pickups sound way, way better than other stock pickups found in my other inexpensive project guitars. The Neck humbucker is mellower with some warmth although not as much as if it had an Alnico 5 magnet. The Bridge humbucker has some bite to it and handles high gain without too much unwanted noise/feedback although I do use a noise gate in my pedal board which helps cut down on that. The Bridge pickup is def good for solos and playing really heavy parts. Neither sound muddy to me. All in all I would recommend this guitar and the Harley Benton brand in general to my friends. I'm very impressed with Harley Benton's build quality. I also purchased the Mockingbird copy which I also really love. This would be an excellent guitar for a beginner who wants to learn how to play metal. I'm in the US and this guitar only costs about $100 which is unbelievable. The tuners I just put in were about $40 which is almost half of what I paid for the whole guitar. I'm just really impressed with this guitar. I've read other reviews saying that this guitar is hard to hold while sitting down. Nope, feels comfortable to me. The only thing I have noticed with the Warlock and Mockingbird is that both guitars have neck dive. I found if I hold the neck it plays fine and is balanced. So just hold the guitar and you'll be fine. I have 15 guitars and these two Harlery Benton's are becoming my go to guitars when I'm inspired to write something. All in all I'm a very satisfied, happy customer and I plan on buying more Harley Benton's even with the shipping costs so high- they're definitely worth it.