Harley Benton Bass Guitar Kit J-Style 3-stars Reviews

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.

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.

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.