Harley Benton HB-60 WB Reviews

Another Excellent H B guitar

Although the guitar sounded fine straight out of the box, I put tape wound strings on mine to complement my fretless and P bass. The build quality is great and the pickups give a good fat sound with a well defined bottom end. On 2 sessions now the producer and/or engineer have preferred the HB to my venerable and extremely expensive Fenders.

A couple of warnings -

The bridge is not fixed so will need adjustment if you change strings.

There is no protection for the selector switch in the box it comes in so with the inevitable rough handling that happens in transit, it can easily be damaged. This may explain some of the other revues.

If you are looking for an unusual bass, I highly recommend you give this one a run.

Great Bass for its price

After a set up and changing stock strings, this bass really comes to life! I put Labella flatwound strings on it and it sounds amazing! Especially the neck pickup. The only thing I should mention is that the scale length is not exactly short! it's medium. I tried putting D'Addario chromes short scale strings on it and they were too short for it!

Excellent bass once set up...

I wanted a short scale, semi acoustic bass to use in a sixties influenced pop / rock trio. This HB-60 was drawn to my attention by a friend who has recently purchased a couple of HB instruments and forund them value for money.

The bass finish is much darker than it appears in the catalogue photograph. Nonetheless it is an attractive instrument and the quality of finish is good, save for one (very minor) blemish near the upper F-hole. Whilst not the heaviest bass I own (a Peavey T-40 holds that honour) this is a solid feeling instrument and I have no qualms about taking it to reherasals.

Once tuned up, the bass was playable, with a reasonably low action (approximately 3mm) at the 12th fret. There was no relief in the neck and consequently open strings rattled when played hard. I restrung with Fender 9050L flatwound strings (.045 - .100) and loosened the truss rod about 1/2 a turn which solved the problem.

The neck is comfortable, and I had no problem swapping between this and my long scale basses.

Sound unplugged is full and rich. Loud enough for quiet practice. Through a Line 6 Bass Pod it is possible to obtain a range of useable tones. The 'Sgt. Pepper' tone in particular is quite convincing! I play fingerstyle, but this bass also responds nicely when played with a pick.

No problems with electronics so far, all work as they should and without noise.

The only con is that the bass is too large for most cases, so the Hagstrom Viking bass case is the only one that will fit. It is a nice, retro looking, case, but relatively expensive.

It probably helps if you are confident enough to perform a basic set up, but that goes for most guitars. So far, I am very pleased with this purchase and consider it good value for money.

stunning for the money

Wow this is a gorgeous looking bass!

It's more of a deep wine red than the pictures suggest but still lovely. Sound wise it's great, loads of different tones with a real punchy warmth. Neck is nice with no obvious fret issues.

Has a floating bridge which comes out the box with a small piece of fabric between the bridge and the body. I know it's there to protect the body but it looks a little messy, suppose I can slacken the strings and pull it out though.

All in all 10/10 for the money, can't be beaten

Great value bass!

Fast delivery to the UK. Good looking bass. Especially for the money. The usual requirements for setting up correctly. Good.

Stunning - Cannot speak highly enough

This was my 3rd Harley bought, and as with all previously this Bass is exceptional for the cost.

I always wanted a hollow body bass, and rather than drop £500 on a bass i may or may not like the sound of, I went for the Harley, and to be honest, I will now not bother with buying a more expensive hollow body because this is so good!

As always I was blown away with the value for money. More people should get into these Bass's!

Shopping now for my 4th Harley!

Looks great but ....

Bass looks great out the box but is let down by cheap parts and poor quality control. Pickups very low output and electrics bit of a mess, crackly pots & floating bridge had screws loose.

Loved the looks of it (as its a dead ringer for Eastwood basses) so rather than send it back I did a complete overhaul - changed pickups, switches, socket and did a proper set up with nice set of flat wounds. Had spares so cost nothing.

As a result it now plays and sounds superb and was well worth the effort.

Is it worth the £? Yes , but you get what pay for...

Very nice except for broken tone control

The HB-60 bass is a beautiful looking guitar. The finish is excellent and it plays well out of the box. The only problem I had was the tone knob not changing the tone. I will need to pull the knob and take a look to see if the capacitor is either not connected correctly or missing. Not a big deal. It is a wide guitar. For comparison - the body is larger than the HB-35 (ES 335 style Harley Benton) and wider than my old Epiphone Sheraton body. For the money, you cannot beat the Harley Benton guitars and the HB-60 bass is no exception.

Great bass after some adjustments

Been playing it for a few weeks now and I really, really, like the bass. Before I bought it I read reviews in various bass forums, usually from people who would never touch a semi hollow bass that cost less than 1000 Euros, that everything that is Chinese made and branded Harley Benton is utter crap.

Now I'm glad I didn't listen to that and bought it to form my own opinion. This is a well built beautiful bass. The neck is completely straight and the body feel and sound like good quality. The pickups sound just like I want them to sound, warm, deep and vintage 60's. The only flaw is the pickup toggle switch that I probably have to replace sooner or later. But that is a ~15 Euro component.

I replaced the stock strings with Fender flatwound 9050l strings and adjusted the neck bend and string action height. These are easy adjustments that you would normally do anyway to make the bass fit your playing style. Watch a "bass setup" youtube clip if you don't know how to. Now it sounds great and I highly recommend it.

It should be noted that this bass require medium or long scale strings even though it's a short scale bass.

Edit: I was a bit worried that the hollow body would produce a lot of feedback but when rehearsing I've had no problem with feedback even when it's really really loud.

HB-60 WB

i'd wanted one of these for ages, i love love love them, everyone i've told about it or shown a picture of it ha gone "oooh, yes, get one". so i did!

plusses: it's beautiful, the finish is flawless, the balance is just right (i have an aria ABG and it suffers badly from neck-dive), the neck is smooth and after a bit of practice it felt just right (i usually play 5s, so the smaller neck felt a bit lost until i got 'into it' and then mm-mm-mmmmm), the hardware compliments the woodwork perfectly, little touches like the shark-fin fret inlays, the body binding, everything, cosmetically and aesthetically it's perfect. and the sound, oh my stars, through an ashdown MAG 300 1x15 it's lovely, thick, warm, creamy, i love it.

cons: pick-up selector switch. it's a bit loose and not properly connected, so the bridge pick didn't work on first playing but the neck PU was fine. after some jiggling and crackling i got them both working, then neither, then the neck only, then both, then nothing. it's not the end of the world, i could dismiss it and say it worked loose it transit, but it'll be a nightmare to get fixed without opening the body up or someone being a real whizz with hollowbodies. disappointing, means i can't gig it, but it'll look beautiful on the stand for now.

but i would still recommend the bass, for what it is it's beautiful, if you want one for a different colour on gigs or as a on-off only-use-it-once-in-a-while it's the absolute business, if you want one for a main bass go mental and spend two or three times the price, it'll do the same thing but it'll cost you, for my money this one's perfect. apart from the switch.

Awesome fun bass.

I'm a guitar player and I bought this bass to have at home for fun and to compose some basslines for my band.

I have to admit it's not as great or at least as solid as other basses I've tried, but it's also the first hollow-body bass I've ever played.

I have always loved the looks of hollow-body basses, especially the 335 kind of body. This bass looks gorgeous and its finish is pretty good for its price. It sounds fat, warm and the 3 pickup positions leave many tonal possibilities. It's a cool bass for vintage sounds. It stays in tune nicely and it came well intonated.

So, what's wrong with it to cost around 200 bucks?

Well, the electronics are poor. The pickup selector came loose and failing sometimes. Pots are a bit noisy.

A great fun bass to have around and to try at the studio. I think it may be gig-worthy, but not without a proper set-up and electronics check-up.

Good for this money

Amazing bass, sounds very cool with flatwound strings (I ordered fender steel with bass and put in in the first moment after unpacking bass) out of the box bridge pickup didn''t work, problem was in switch, I was make the contact plate stay in position and It's OK now. Good made a finish, frets are OK, maybe I will put another tuners with clover style, like on Gibson basses

If you want non-expensive bass with vintage vibes of 60's, like early Rolling Stones, The Kinks and other British Wave-this bass is a good choice!