Harley Benton Bass Guitar Kit P-Style 4-stars Reviews

Great value deal!

I found the best way to appreciate what matters in a popular style of bass is to put one together yourself! I am surprised at the quality of the body item in this kit and also the quality, accuracy and finish of the neck assembly. I part-assembled to try the fit of all parts. I separated the items before shaping, sanding and spraying final clear lacquer on the wood, leading to easy assembly and adjustment. A good budget bass - and easy to customise!

Great product, poor QA

Overall the product is great. Pickup isn't anything to write home about, but it is serviceable. Tuners have some spots where it doesn't change the tuning but hold up tuning pretty well. My main 2 issues are: - Body is sealed but really unevenly. I do recommend sanding this down and polishing at the very least, but i'd suggest adding a couple layers of sealer again, if you want to preserve the wood look. - One of my kits was missing 9 screws (for the bridge and strap buttons), as well as screws and springs for the pickups. Other than that the kit has everything you need in there to assemble it; the other kit I ordered was not missing anything.

Very solid and reasonable

For the money you pay i think its a perfect project

Also its very useful for other things as well

For example you maybe want to make a bass on your own and you need the measurements for everything or you even want to take some part out

Its very very good for what you pay

Worth

Worth the price. The body was smooth but the frets were poking a little. Overall well done. Pickups were not good, they were ok.

Better than expected!

This guitar is no match for the Fender Custom Shop, but let's be realistic....for the price it's AMAZING!

I notice that a few other reviews have said that some of the pre-drilled holes were misplaced, but I didn't find this. Everything was pretty much bang on and the finished guitar is well aligned. I used Fender's online guide for set up, and it plays well, with good intonation.

Body is really light, which is good on the shoulder but it makes it a bit head heavy. If balance is an issue for you then the body may be too light.

Acoustically it seems to resonate really well, but plugged in it initially sounded weak compared to my other bass (which cost x10 more). I swapped the strings for flatwounds and this totally fixed the 'weak' sound. It's both full and open, and I'm so impressed at this price range. The volume pot has a terrible taper that is pretty much all or nothing, but this is a simply cheap swap out.

The only thing that feels cheap (weight aside) is the tuning heads, which are a bit light and not as smooth as more expensive ones, but for the price they are not below expectations.

Time will tell how stable it is, but first impressions are that it is very useable, and I would happily gig with it. So much better than the cheap guitars of my youth.

Highly recommended!

Great Introduction to Guitar Building

This has to be the simplest kit to put together. You can expect to do some work on the fret ends, the nut slots and intonation. The body was pretty enough to be finished with an oil but I have done mine in fiesta red.

The only hiccup was the bridge which did not align with the pre-drilled holes and caused an hour of head scratching until I got it into place.

Fully assembled it plays like a dream and I have more guitar than I payed for.

Fun first project

A very decent kit. Everything included.

Good for first time build.

Had issues with screws breaking that is used to fasten the tuners.

Amazing Value

Needed something cheap to practice while not having access to my nice basses. Sounds like good P-Bass. Give it a good setup and don't really see a reason why I wouldn't use this live or in the studio.

Quality is what you would expect. Some screw holes not quite in the right spot. But for this money, it's not even worth complaining about.

P-Style Bass

I am not a bass player but I decided to have the full XP and build it and then play it. The kit looks to be a solid kit with basic kit pieces parts. I am sure it will suit me fine and I can upgrade the components as I am going.

Great starter kit

I bought this kit to ease the boredom of lockdown.

It was easy to assemble & the parts supplied were of an okay quality - exactly what you'd expect from a kit of this price.

The only bit I changed was the bridge, for something with a bit higher mass and I added copper shielding to the control cavity.

The paint finish (rattle-can) that I decided to add was the most time-consuming thing - YouTube videos are your friend!

Overall a nice bass, great enjoyment building it, and a useable bass at the end.

Recommended!

Mixed feelings, but overall positive

I will use this bass for playing at home and recording.

What I liked:

Neck seems very good, frets also. There were no sharp ends. Grain on the back side (maple) is really nice. Fretboard also came in a very nice color. Body is very light (and very soft, prone to bruises), finish is great. Hadrware is also good: tuners are solid, pickup sounds really decent, bridge is nice, pickguard is prewired wich was nice. It?s all nice and neat.

What I didn?t like:

prewired holes for tuner screws missaligned. This meant that I had to refill all the screw holes and drill new ones. Also, predrilled holes for the pickup were not good as one hole was drilled too close to the upper edge of the pickup hole and when inserted like that, pickup could not fit. So again, I refilled the holes and drilled new ones. I had to sand the pickguard a little to fit the pickups through a little bit.

If the holes alligned I would have given 5 stars.

When I assembled the bass I was able to get good medium action (little below 3 mm) without fretbuzz. Only fretbuzz was at the last fret which needs to be sanded down a little bit (but that is not a minus, I?ve had much worse on much more expensive basses). Neck needed a fair bit of adjustment as it had quite an up-bow, but it was easiliy fixed.

Sound is really good, and the tone pot is good. There?s quite a difference with tone closed and fully opened.

Anyways I would reccomend this kit, but only to people who don?t have problems in patching missaligned holes and drilling new ones due to chance of holes being drilled wrong. For the price you get a really nice p bas.

Oh yeah strings that come with the bass are sh**, you can use them to set up the bass and see how it sounds.

Good Modding Platform

Bought this with intention of modding it to be along lines of the billy sheehan basses. The stock pick up is surprisingly clear and punchy. Only issues i found were all the pick guard screws were missing and the pre drilled guides for the pick up screws were put too far forward. But both easy to get around.

Surprisingly good.

The holes for the tuners and pickups where slightly off. Easily fixed. Otherwise a good kit. Loads of fun.

surprise

Wasn't out to get the P of my life, just wanted to get a P width rosewood neck in the house, also not bad to have some fun putting it together with my son. the package came fast, all there as expected, easy to assemble, the screws are bad and most of the holes are off, that could be better. the neck and the frets are nice, the body has a protective coating which is great, there's a neck dive but it's easily fixed with a good strap. For the money invested it's a lot of bass, i've put on a set of heavy flatwounds, using it unplugged at night to get some muscles working. doesn't sound bad plugged in either, but doesn't get a chance, since there's so many others for the stage and studio... All in i think it's fun and for the amount of money you guys are asking it's unbeatable.

Good buy...enjoyable

I was interested in getting 'under the hood' of a bass and this kit was a great first introduction. You end up with a playable bass.

Pros: easy to assemble (1.5 hours while watching T.V.)

Neck slid into body perfectly!

Wiring was easy.

Bass doesn't sound too bad.

Cons: manual doesn't tell you which screws to use!

One screw broke under normal use.

Missing 2 screws!

Not bad for the price

Overall quite happy with the product. One or two small difficulties, especially determining which screws are used for which part of the build. When completed, it sounded quite well, although after a substantial amount of adjustments were required.

I don't think it would be well suited to a professional player however I would definitely recommend it to somebody who is looking for a simple bass that is fun to build. Overall a nice little project and fantastic for the price.

Pretty Good

The package arrived quickly and in very good condition, kit was very easy to put together and was incredibly easy to customize. Overall I'm pretty happy with the playability, there is a slight issue with the action where it does tend to be quite high no matter how many times I try to reset the truss rod but the neck is comfortable and the body is nice and light allowing me to jump around during gigs. The sound is fairly good for the price, couple it with a clean equalizer and a good amp and you're good to go for a gig. The endless ways you can customize the body and neck will also leave you with a truly unique bass playing experience and the months of work created a project that lead to (while not my best sounding bass) one of my favorite basses in my collection. I wouldn't take this bass to the studio but I would definitely take it to a gig for a few flashy photos.

All in all for the price, I would highly suggest this as a project for anyone looking for a genuine good time with their new instrument.

Good kit, the pickups could be better

I bought this kit along with a the telecaster building kit. The instructions were fairly easy to follow and I didn't encounter any particular problems when putting this kit together. The bass plays well, the truss rod works and everything is A-Ok, except for the pickups which sound a bit lame. I plan on swapping them out in the near future. A good starter kit for those wanting to try out building their own bass, the end product is worth it

I HAVE BOUGHT KITS FROM OTHER COMPANIES IN THE PAST. THIS ONE WAS BETTER.

requires some work

I needed a good body and neck to build my own custom Bass Guitar.

positive:

The body and neck are good and the neck fits the body (a bit loose).

Good neck plate and bridge.

The electronics work and are pre-soldered and fixed to pickguard.

All the parts needed are in the kit, including adjusting tools.

negative:

The screw holes do not match with pickguard and tuners.

Low quality tuning mechanisms.

Low quality pickguard.

The output jack is larger than the cavity, some wood needs to be removed.

conclusion:

This kit needs a lot of work, like drilling new holes and adjusting. It requires some basic understanding of woodworking to put it together. It also requires some knowledge on how to set up a bass guitar to make it playable, mostly adjusting neck & bridge.