Harley Benton Bass Guitar Kit J-Style Reviews

Wow

For the price I wasn't expecting something amazing, but I was pleasantly surprised. The routing was a bit rough in some spots, but since I intended to customize the bass, this wasn't an issue. The pickups aren't the best, but once again, you can't beat the price. I recommend this kit. Cheers

Nice for learning

It's a nice project for someone who wants to learn to play the instrument as it makes you understand the body while you're building it. Also, I strongly advise you to buy a mediocre bass if you're starting out and this is a good one for that specific case.

great fun!

The qulity of the components and materials are perfectly useable, whilst not being the highest quality.

I did need to purachase a fret file as there were some very sharp fret ends.

Once assembled it was very playable and stable, if a little neck heavy.

Overall, these are good beginner kits that are very good value for money.

Great kit, super value

My daughter and I bought this kit as a project to make a fretless bass. The quality is really good, neck plays well, pickups sound great. All in all a really good purchase!

Very fun project

As expected, the quality of the product were amazing, but the holes cut out were kinda poor. One must put in some effort to make it better, but again thats the fun part. making it your own.

Also, dont forget to buy all the necessary tools before jumping in, and dont straight away buy upgrades, because it needs some work at first

Incredible bang for the buck.

I had fun building this. The final product is an extremely playable bass that has only needed minor adjustments to get close to how I like my basses to be. The pickups are surprisingly good and fit well in a mix (although I think I will end up replacing them). My only complaint, and it's something to be expected when you're building something like this, is that some of the predrilled holes for the head stock were not deep enough to accommodate the screws. However, they were good enough for rock and roll and I've had no issues at all.

I did not sand and fill the holes with wood filler, which is usually what you should do with a piece of wood like this. Just a heads up for something to do before staining. The 3 pieces for the body were not that different in color and, although you can see the difference between the pieces, it doesn't impact the final product.

If you're looking for a bass and also want a project, I would highly recommend this. Not my favorite bass, but my favorite is several multiples in cost more expensive.

Great DIY project

Such a nice experience to be able to put together your own instrument at the comfort of your home. Was only a bit disappointed with the instrument body since it's made of two distinct types of wood but as an overall experience you can't go wrong with this one. Would totally recommend it to new players.

Overal a great bass

Everything works as it should

Some screw holes are a bit of a tight fit though

Frets are pretty good too no fret buzz from what i can hear

So overal really great bass for the price

Great project

Bought this a hobby project to do in my spare time. Great product that was fun & easy to put together. As a playable instrument I was pleasantly surprised too.

Very good kit - you will need to do some work but that's expected

This is a very good kit to work with and with a bit of effort, will result in a very usable bass guitar.

I've built HB kits before so I knew what to expect. True to form, it was well packaged, delivered very efficiently, and everything was there. The components were all wrapped carefully and everything was complete. It's a kit so I knew I'd need to do a reasonable amount of work on it. You could just build it as is but you get a better result with some effort.

The body was fairly well finished but there were some rough patches and a couple of marks from the sanding so it was sensible to sand it down to 400. Although it didn't need a primer, I applied one anyway because I was going to give it a gloss acrylic finish. After the initial cleaning up and painting the body I checked the neck. Very straight, frets perfect and there were no rough edges. It would have been fine to use straight out of the box but I shaped the headstock and then prepared and painted the neck too - don't forget to mask the fingerboard :) .

Once painted, I assembled the whole thing in about an hour but there were some little irritations on the way. The plastic plate was not cut accurately to fit the neck and needed a fair bit removing with a Dremel. Not difficult but surely it could have been cut accurately in advance. The screw holes for the plate were positioned accurately though they were drilled a little deep so the screws were loose once inserted. I just dipped the ends in wood filler and they settled in fine. These are very trivial irritations.

The bridge was positioned perfectly and once the strings were on I set it up. The truss rod needed only a quarter turn to set the action though getting the action right at the bridge meant the bridge was lowered virtually to the plate. That tells me that I'd have to put a shim under the neck to recover the adjustability. Something the width of a credit card will do the trick. It's not a deficiency of the kit, simply something we need to recognise and deal with for all bolt-on necks. A note in the construction booklet in future might be useful for others.

The pickups and controls were easy to install and everything works fine, both pickups giving a good signal and the tone control has a reasonable range. The downside is that these are cheap pickups and seem quite noisy. Given that the pickup and control cavities are not screened from EMI and since they are both single coil, noise is inevitable. I decided to disassemble the bass, put a shim under the neck join, and replace the pickups with Fender Jazz Bass pickups (from here) and also to line and earth all the cavities with copper tape which should all but eliminate noise. The strings provided are fine but I'm putting flats on for even less string noise.

First time round it played very well and comfortably and there's a good balance between neck and body. Even with the stock pickups, there's a good range of sounds available and it records well straight into a USB mixer. I'm playing mostly jazz and not gigging with it but even through a standard guitar amp, this gives plenty of rich bass tones. Once it has the Fender pickups in it, it'll sound even better.

As with every kit, you'll have to do some work but with a bit of patience and a modicum of skill, this kit gives you a very nice jazz bass at very low cost. Recommended.

Fun instrument as long as you are willing to invest considerable time and effort

I bought this as a fun project to assemble together with my son. While instructions are straightforward, you will probably need some experience in assembling or restoring guitars/basses to turn this into a playable instrument. The quality of the wood and the way it was prepared is below par. You will need to sand, resand and fill spots and dents before you can actually paint or apply lacquer since traces of the CNC milling machine are visible all over. Second, the applied primer/pore filler is low quality and should be totally sanded down and replaced with a decent primer. What's worse is the holes weren't drilled vertically and therefor the pickguard did not fit (had to fill and re-drill some holes). Installing electronics was a breeze (no soldering!) and soundwise it's quite good. Quality of the parts is OK-ish, but don't expect A-brand performance. Instruction manual is nice and complete, but make sure to check out some Youtube video's as well, especially about setup, fret leveling and intonation. In short: a fun project bass with a reasonable sounding result, depending on the amount of time and effort you are willing to invest in it.

Overall good

Overall a good kit. Everything I expected, the only thing that was pitty; one of the PU's didnt work. A replacement was send soon.

good enough Jazz Bass kit

This kit is a good buy for it's price / quality ratio.

The body I has been finished pretty well, made up of 3 pieces, having a nice grain to the texture.

The neck also came in a good gondition and finish, but having a very long scratch along the fretboard, under the frets which means the scratch has been made in the fabrication process, looked over this issue and the frets were just pushed in, overlooking this issue.

The Roseacer substitute for Rosewood (or heat treated maple) isn't one of the best looking woods. It has a roasted ash like texture to it, and it gives the feel of being painted.

Besides these imperfections, the sounds from the pickups are very good for their price range (probably very low, mass-produced) so the pickups save the overall quality of the bass.

The neck fits loosely in the neck pocket but with the pickguard mounted before, I could get a snug fit.

Setup wasn't an issue, trussrod worked well.

However for a very low action playability, the frets needed leveling.

Overall it is a nice and playable instrument, although some things aren't very pleasing about it.

Fun prodject with a decent bass

Body:

-The body needed a lot of sanding and putty before I could paint it.

-The wood is also really soft and light. This means it dents easily and the bass has quite a lot of neck dive.

-The predrilled holles were drilled in the correct position but the holes for the strap buttons were too big for the screws so I had to use bigger screws.

Neck:

-The neck was finished well. The fretboard needed a bit of cleaning

-The frets were 100% perfectly level and perfectly crowned, the did however need polishing and the fret ends needed rounding (they were not sharp but I prefer rounded fret edges).

-The nut was cut correctly.

-The neck fitted very tight in the neck pocket.

Hardware:

-All the hardware works, the tuners aren't super smooth but they do the job.

-I can't comment much on the sound of the pickups because I'm new to bass guitar. I don't know how they should sound. But I think they sound just fine.

Conclusion

I give this bass a 7/10

It is a perfectly functional and good looking bass but it has neckdive and the body dents easily. I also needed some different screws than they provided to assemble the strap buttons.

Great Fun!

This was the first time I'd attempted to build an instrument from a kit.

I've been a guitar player for over 40 years, and wanted a bass for home recording, but also for a bit of a 'do it yourself' challenge.

I downloaded a template for the headstock from the web, cut out the shape with a coping saw, used a file and emery cloth to smooth it off.

Lacquered it with some automotive acrylic lacquer I had lying around and treated the fingerboard to lashings of lemon oil. Some spikey fret ends were smoothed with a small file and polished with emery cloth.

The body was a disappointment, being of two distinct colours of wood, so had to be painted. I chose gold to go with the tortoiseshell pickguard I'd ordered with the kit. It was only after applying the paint that I realised I'd misread the instructions.

The body needs grain sealer and primer before painting. I'd recommend this be stated clearly in the instructions if possible. I didn't do this, and consequently the woodgrain soaked up loads of paint and is still visible after many coats. Be warned, future buyers!

I lined the cavities with copper foil for shielding, then the whole thing went together like a dream, and I set it up for neck relief, intonation and action as per online recommendations.

Here's the best part. The sound is fantastic and very like the genuine article; so much so that the bass player in my band wants me to build him one. It'll be ordered today.

A few little niggles, but the end result is great.

Proceed with caution

Fun project overall. It has potential to become a great one, but has silly flaws which caused too much headache for me, which kinda ruined the experience.

Pros:

- Fretboard is great quality wood

- No bits were missing from the package

- Everything worked when put together

Cons:

- Body had several dents and scratches on arrival

- No single screw was matching the pre-drilled wholes. I had to re-drill literally everything.

- Needed significant amount of fretwork below the 15th fret, otherwise would buzz like crazy unless action was too high to be playable

- Ground cable may slip and loose contact with the bridge unless you solder it

- (Not the kit's fault) There's some chance that you'll damage something during the build process

Suggestions:

- Don't buy upgrade stuff until you've built and set the whole thing up correctly and you determine that you're satisfied enough with the result to throw more money at it

- I fit it with a Fender HiMass bridge and Di Marzio DP123. Don't do this combination bridge spacing an magnets do not align correctly, as a result G string passes over one magnet only.

Good starter kit

Bought the kit out of interest for bass playing after a good experience with the T-style guitar kit.

Initial assembly was easy and took about an hour, after which the bass was ready to play. Out of the box it is a fairly playable instrument. After preliminary assembly and playing I took the kit apart for painting and some hardware upgrades, after which it became a really nice instrument. The neck needed quite a lot of fret leveling, but it was a good learning experience to get fretwork practice.

All in all you can get a working instrument for less than 100¤, but to get the most out of the kit, hardware modifications are recommended. In the end I changed out all of the electronics and hardware except for the body and neck. I would recommend this kit to somebody who needs an affordable instrument with possibilities for future upgrades.

A good kit for a good money

I created a fretless bass out of the kit and with extra purchased flat wound strings the sound of the bass is above my expectations. Good value for such price!

Summary (+/-):

- few stains on the wooden body (some extra puttying needed)

+ good quality of all the other components

+ detailed manual attached

+ easy and logical assembly

+ good sound

+ feeling of "creating" my own bass :-)

A good base for upgrades

A good kit to approch the art of guitar/bass building.

The wood of the body has a weird grain so a natural finish is not the best option, I finish mine in fiesta red nitro and the result is stunning. Body needs to be carefully sanded on some spots that are rough to grant a good final result.

The neck is quite good, I did a level-recrown-polish job to the frets as I did with all the low cost instruments, fretboard with a good soak of wood oil (I use the red one but there's plenty of choices) reveals a beautyful dark tone.

I can't judge the stock PU because I changed it with a pair of Di Marzio's DP123, electronic is the standard chinese stuff you find in low cost intruments, it works, for sure can be upgraded with quality part for a few bucks if you want.

Assembly is easy, the coupling neck-body is tight.

With a quick set up the finished bass is a good, playable instrument, soundwise my rating is influenced by the fact that I installed PUs that costs more than the kit but even with the standard ones you'll have a light bass with a confortable neck with no dead spots that you can think to upgrades later

Great value for money

You can't beat getting a good quality bass guitar for the price. build quality is good. Very easy to assemble. great investment for home recording studio and learning.