Harley Benton Beatbass VS Vintage Series 4-stars Reviews

Disclaimer: I don't consider myself an expert in instrument craftsmanship, this is just my view based on having casually owned a few guitars and basses in my life.

I am totally happy with this guitar. I have purchased a few guitars in my life new, or off the shelf at a standard guitar shop, and this is by far the best coming directly out of the box. I have not once had an issue with fret sharpness. I don't have the expertise to be able to tell if the frets are level but they look ok to me and fret buzz has been minimal.

Low points: intonation needs some work (tiny bit sharp on all strings at the 12th fret)

Tuners seem budget quality. Not too smooth turning, some inconsistency between tuners (some seem strong/more solid than others), but they're not properly rickety and no slipping I've noticed. I do have to tune up a little pretty much every use.

Pickups/sound I'm absolutely happy with. No neck issues. Mine is very straight and after a few months of ownership truss seems to be slowly becoming in need of a little loosening.

But this sounds and feels incredible. I have owned a comparable Rogue model in the past and this is a better instrument. The Rogue had some dead notes and shaky electronics. No problems like that here.

Beautiful looking bass

Plays a dream and looks even better.

So much fun

What a fun little bass! I plan to use it when my old arthritic hands are acting up. It's so light and the short scale is very comfortable. I would love to give it five stars across the board but there were a few unfortunate deficiencies.

PROS:

- overall, the look is lovely

- nice looking binding, hardware & sunburst effect on many surfaces, including sides and back of headstock

- the frets are finished nicely

- considering the thousands of kilometers it travelled from Germany to western Canada, the set-up was amazing: great action & intonation; even very close to being in tune

- the controls make serious changes to the sound

CONS;

- there are weird light markings long the edge of the fretboard, almost like someone sanded it a bit and took off the finish

- there are some tiny blemishes or uneven spots in the finish both on the wood and the chrome; not noticeable from any distance

- the only serious concern is that it ships with round-wound strings and I had to immediately put D'Addario flat-wounds on; the sound was pretty wonky otherwise

Despite the CONS, I think I will love playing this bass. The sound is unlike any other I've played. It definitely is not the sound for all purposes. It is a thumpy sound; there's basically no sustain. Having said that, the non-playing strings tend to ring a lot, especially on the "SOLO" setting. You need to be very good at muting if you switch from "RHYTHM".

All in all, I'd say this bass is all you'd need if you wanted to add that 60s sound to your repertoire.

My favorite bass so far...

Pros :

- very interesting sound possibilities,

- fun to play

- very light to carry

- vintage style

Cons :

- the knobs are and look and feel cheap

- the balance on my lap due to the light-weight body could be annoying

However, when I need to record and check sound with different ones of my rig (j-bass, p-bass) on the low cost range....this is by far the most interesting one.

Good Violin Bass for the price

I could not find any flaws with this guitar concerning looks and build

The set up needed slight adjustment, with a tweak to the truss rod and bridge height , however this is normal practice for any guitar straight from the factory.

The intonation was spot on.

The bridge is movable and the saddles can be moved so it’s easily adjustable.

You do need to lift the bridge to remove the foam packing,

I would advise therefore marking its position with some tape to ensure it goes back in the same position, assuming that your instruments Intonation was set correct at the factory

great value

very nice tone for the price! Use the bass for home recording and it does the job for that early Beatles sound.

Feel like playing in the Cavern?

This is a good chance to play the kind of instrument that was made famous by the Fab Four. It won't have the finesse of other originals, but does the job and it's neatly made.

And for an unbeatable price. (Sorry, I couldn't resist)

Decent bass and great option for a different sound

This bass has a great value. It plays fine and sounds good too. It's specially recommended for guitarists (smaller neck easier to adapt) and anyone looking for this kind of round and more acoustic sound. It does the job really fine.

Great sound and look but some mini faults

Great sounding bass just as good as a low end Hofner,but mine had a few marks on it and it came with Round wound strings not Flat as stated.Its still a great bass for the money .But it could have been better quality wise

Can't buy me what?

Well it's a Beatles Paul bass isn't it? Yes, yes it is.

I was pleasantly surprised with the quality of the thing. It was almost in tune when it arrived - always a good sign - and the intonation was fine. And the latter is quite important because this has a floating bridge so good intonation meant no messing about for an hour trying to get in tune.

There was a bit of setting up though. Unlike most people I actually raised the action and adjusted the truss rod for some neck relief as (a) there was quite a bit of fret buzz and (b) the neck was incredibly straight. Some people may have been happy with the way it arrived though.

One almost drawback is that the bass arrives with typical Hofner style wiring. If you've never come across this before use of the search engine of your choice is advised as with the switches a certain way all you get is silence. Which is normal. Stupid but normal.

I would have preferred paying a little extra for this and getting flatwound strings. Again that's personal preference. Personally, I hate new strings, on guitar or bass. Horrible twangy screechy things. So a set of flatwounds is on their way to me.

It really is a good facsimile of a certain type of bass and what you get for what you pay is absolutely fantastic.

It's so good in fact, I'm going to get the fretless next.

Bass with an inviting character

This beat bass is what Guitar players want: it is short and light weight, but with consistent sound. After 3 years of use, I'm having a little deficiency on the electric part, as the "solo" switch operates. But this will be just a contact repair.

Nice bas guitar

I like the sound and playability for little money I payed. Only problem I had is that the neck is heavier than the body of guitar so that was something I needed to repair. Went to a guy and he put a little weight inside of hollow body just to make balace :) Well tahat is my experience.

Great for the price

I'm not a bass player but this was too cool not to own! Plays and looks great but as I'm not a bass player I don't really use it too much.

Neck feels great, pick ups are wooly! and overall I think it's a great bass.

Cool bass!

Very cool Beatles bass! There are a couple of issues though. The switches are somehow not correctly connected. It seems wires are soldered to wrong switches, but it all works even though the switches are wrong. I watched Henning Pauli?s review of this bass and he experienced the same troubles with the switches. I guess they all are wrong then...

The finish is on this bass is BEAUTIFUL!

Great Deal!

Use:

I use this bass mainly at home just to jam on but I have played it at gigs and had no problems!

Pros:

Looks amazing

Sounds great

Great Value

Well finished and built

Cons:

It's heavy at the top so it tends to drop towards the headstock when I am using a strap.

Movable bridge is something I have not had experience with so it took me a while to figure it out.

Overall:

I would definitely recommend this bass to anyone who is looking for something vintage and cool looking, especially beginners and people who don't have a lot of money to spend.

Great looking bass, not the greatest sound

This is a excellent looking bass, looks fantastic. The only down fall is the sound, the pick ups are poor and the volume and switches are not great. The bass is not up to standered for recording or playing live, but it does look excellent. I use this bass mainly to look at. This is the cheapest beatles bass on the market. I have 3 harley benton guitars, they are made cheap and cheerfully but they do the job. I continue to buy harley benton guitars because for the price they are unbeatable. They are not great guitars but for the price you cant argue. The are made well but are made from cheap materials.

surprisingly good bass

Well made with a good standard of finish. Very useful if you need a light weight (2.5 Kg) bass with a short scale. A lot of fun for very little money.

Harley Benton Beatbass.

I was looking for a cheap violin bass and the Harley Benton wasn't too much of a risk, given its price. The first thing that struck me was how well put-together it was and how nice it looked in the flesh. Plugging it in, it certainly gives a certain vibe, especially with the neck pickup soloed and adding the bridge pickup allows it to cut through a bit more. The bridge pickup when soloed was quite useable too - usually on instruments with this pickup configuration, the bridge pickup doesn't sound too good on its own, but this one surprised me. I didn't like the stock strings and changed them for a set of flatwounds and this gave a lovely 60s vibe to the sound. The neck was comfortable to play and I encountered no problems with the frets and after a little tweak of the truss rod after changing strings, this became a much more playable bass. I'd heartily recommend one for the price - you already have an idea of what they sound like and I'm happy to confirm that it'll get you some way there, but at a fraction of the cost of the instruments that inspired it.