Harley Benton PB-20 BK Standard Series Reviews

Harley Benton PB-20 BK Standard Series

In short: unbelievable for this amount of money!

I use this bass for home recordings (i play guitar, not bass) and for this pupose it's more than good enough! Stays in tune, is easy to play or easy adjustable to your likings. Great bass to start with or like me, to be able to record a bassline casually.

Cheers;)

For that mony good

Is nott my first gytar, but, is perfect for start

Good product for the price

A good product for its price for a beginner. In the initial state, you can play, but the pickups are too noisy and have a weak signal level. Frets stick out along the edge - had to be filed. I bought new active EMG pickups and I am very happy with the result, though the pickup kit cost more than the cost of the guitar itself :) Translated from Russian

Decent but problematic

Let me preface the whole review by saying that, unless you can do a few jobs/repairs on the instrument yourself, get something that might have better quality control. I've been playing and setting up instruments for some odd 20 years now and I can certainly do most repairs and boy, this instrument needed quite a lot.

Starting off, the bass isn't bad. Right off the bat I checked if the truss rod was working and the truss rod nut was ok and not stripped, since I had that happen and you're going to have a bad day with that!

Everything seemed fine as far as first impressions go.

Now the cons/bad stuff/repairs that needed to be done, and let's start from the easier stuff.

First off, the strings that come stock are just plain horrible and don't do justice to the instrument. Better strings right away will definitely help.

Second, the pickup. This a ceramic split coil, not wound too hot but is quite harsh and very modern sounding. Bad thing is, it is too mid scooped and won't get the traditional P tone. However, that said, the bass is controlled and doesn't muddy up the sound and, while the treble is really harsh, it can be tamed to a beautiful result. Still, with the mids virtually non-existent, I will be changing the pickup as soon as possible. It's certainly not bad but it's not the classic P tone.

Another problem with the pickup is that it's completely anemic. Even when put the closest it can get to the strings, it's still very, very weak. And if you get it too close to the strings you get spikes/artifacts on every attack, which isn't really usable. To remedy that, until I can change it, I added ceramic bar magnets underneath the pickups. That, at least, gave it the much needed volume. But I will certainly be changing the pickup in the future.

As a little note, the pickup's screwed very wonky in there and the holes are kinda misaligned.

While speaking of the pickup, the cavity seems to be painted with some black paint. At first I thought it was conductive but, after checking with a multimeter for continuity, it is not. Which is weird, because there is a screw under there that's grounded to the back of a pot. Apparently they thought it was conductive but it certainly doesn't give any continuity readings whatsoever, I checked every spot in there.

I also found a few dents and chips on the bass.

A small detail. The fretboard was very dry. It immediately needed some lemon oil, which it soaked up very fast. Keep that in mind.

For the more bad stuff now. When trying to set it up, I found the neck pocket's too deep and needed a shim. When I removed the neck to install a shim, I found a small shim already there and a spot in the neck pocket where it was over-routed. You could clearly even make out the size of the router head used. That was certainly bad.

The neck screws were also misaligned but thankfully, this doesn't seem to affect anything and the neck and bridge are all aligned fine. No need to fill and redrill, thankfully.

The nut also was very crudely cut and the slots needed to be rounded with a small file and some graphite put in there for the strings not to bind.

Apart from that, the pickguard and the neck pocket were too tight towards the top, which made deep indentations in the neck, right below the fretboard. This is just bad quality control, instruments with flaws like that shouldn't make it out of the factory, considering there are people who can't do these jobs themselves and they can get costly, or even worse, they won't be ever discovered and you'll be playing a very badly set up instrument.

Now for the pros.

I got this bass expecting to have to do a fretjob. Thankfully, that wasn't the case. After going at it with a straight edge and a fret rocker, there are no high frets. They frets aren't crowned that well but they're ok. There was also no fret sprout.

The finish, apart from some paint chipping and dents under the pickguard and around the neck pocket was fine.

The fretboard, while very dry, has a very nice grain on it. After oiling, it shows a lot better and it's quite beautiful. I don't know what kind of amaranth wood this is (amaranth is purpleheart but this was too dark) but it's nice.

The tuners work fine, although they had some kind of plastic residue stuck and I had to disassemble them and grease them for them not to bind.

The nut, while badly cut, was at least cut with the right height. Although this, after putting a shim in the neck pocket.

All in all, it's the cheapest instrument you can get and if you can do these repairs (if they are indeed reparable) then you get a nice enough instrument. If I was buying again, I'd wait until I had more money and buy something better myself.

After repairing all the aforementioned, the bass does play really well but again, it needed a lot of work to get there and, considering the price, I doubt many newbies can do these repairs.

Great bass for the price

If you are starting, and want a base that is reliable, and not so pricy..this is perfect. nothing extra ordinary. just perfect to start. afordable, good quality, no complains.

It's a bass that can do many more things than what the pricetag indicates. I have gotten many compliments about my sound even though i am not using a great amplifier. 100% would buy it again

A great P-bass value!

As a longtime bass player, I have always wanted a P-bass in my stable. Recently discovered this brand and instrument and at this price, how could I resist? Several YouTube reviews pushed me to buy.

Took a while to arrive in US from Germany (so hard to wait!), but what I got was a very solid instrument. Feels well-built and well...solid. There are a few places where you can tell that I spent less than $100 for the bass (tuners are tighter than I like), but overall, I'm very happy with the purchase.

Have brought it to some band rehearsals. Has a nice growl to it and feels good. Rather heavy but I don't mind.

Love my purchase! Can't wait to buy another Harley Benton!

Good for beginners

For a beginner it does the job! Nothing fancy.

Seeing is believing

I did not expect to receive a P-Bass clone that felt and sounded Good right out of the box. No rattles or hums, no protruding frets. A bit headstock-heavy, it wants to dive... This is probably not My last HB. Low price - Good quality.

very nice bass . i like it a lot and is the best for the beginers

WOW what a Shocker.

I thoght i would recieve a bass that would barely play and would need lots of adjustments... Well... That was not the case, straight out of the box it was flawless just tune and play! Incredible!

Highly recommend this one to anyone who is taking he's first steps in the world of bass or those that just want another axe without draining ones wallet empty ?.

Cheers!

Good for a starting bass!

This was my first bass. I bought it 4 years ago and it's excellent for learning the instrument. It's really sturdy and for the most part has served me well. It's great for the price and I honestly didn't expect much.

One big problem I've had with it is that the output jack is kind of loose and often the conncection between the bass and the amp would fail, resulting in an awful popping noise. This has happened to me on stage and it's not a pleasant experience.

If you plan to play gigs with it, you may need to touch up a few things. Otherwise it's great for playing at home and practicing.

great bass for starters and even intermediate players. plays very nice, almost exactly like a proper fender p bass. would recommend changing the stock strings, as they are a bit clunky and not very bright. otherwise, an incredible bass for such a low price

Sounds good but don't expect anything great or amazing.

I think the bass is ok for the money but not worth a whole lot more. In my experience there were sharp fret ends (basically all of them on the treble side of the neck, not as bad on the bass side), screws not screwed in completely, one ding on the edge of the body where it cracked the finish and action set higher than I would play. All in all its probably not a bad deal as long as you're not expecting it to play or have the fit and finish of something more expensive right out of the box. It could possibly be setup to play and feel as good or better as something more expensive with some work but mine didn't arrive that way. I was a little disappointed this one didn't quite live up to the hype of the reviews because there were a couple other Harley Bentons I was interested in but now not so much.

Sounds fab out the box

Grabbed this just to muck about with, I have been playing bass for 36 years in Orchestra's and pop groups

I own an old 1971 Fender Jazz which is my main bass

However I was very happy with this guitar and used it on a session straight out the box, easy to play and sounds great, will defiantly be using many more times in the future :)

Great value and perfect for light recording use

I needed to get a bass for the purposes of recording demo videos and tunes. As a guitarist, I was not willing to spend a fortune on a bass for light use, thankfully the PB-20 doesn't cost a fortune and actually sounds great.

With a bit of set up it is very comfortable to play. It keeps its tuning well and records brilliantly. The build quality is also remarkably good for the price, with nice frets and a solid feel throughout.

BANG FOR BUCK

I always was a J bass player and wanted to try out a P. At such price it was a no-brainer to get PB-20 and try it out.

Features - it has a P pup, volume and tone controls - what more one can expect.

Sound - It does sound like a P bass, no complaints there. However, not sure if all comes like this or it is just mine, but the pickup is hot - It clips my interface everytime I tried to slap it no matter how soft I did it - I put PB-20 through a compressor which tamed the peaks. Not an issue, just to keep in mind when adjusting the gain.

Quality - for such a price I did expect it to be worse. No sharp edges on frets, neck is set nicely, strings align with pole pieces, bridge is sturdy and is screwed tight. The only issue I had is with a truss rod - Adjusting it was not an easy application and I struggled with it.

If you want to check if P bass is for you this is the one to get!

Amazing for the price

I bought this bass as my first ever three months ago. Wasn't expecting much. Bass arrived, I opened the package and there she was. The neck wasn't set up the slightest (action was extremely low, can't really expect good action from a cheap newly-bought bass) and there were clear and obvious traces of glue from when it was put together.

After a week the pickup (or jack) stopped working and I had to ask for a replacement.

The replacement is serving me well. I had the neck fixed a bit and overall it's a solid axe for a collection or for a beginner. It can also handle down-tuning extremely well (I normally have it at drop D) so it's fully metal-worthy. Might not have the look but definitely has the sound.

One thing I don't like however (this might be my amp) is that the tone seems to be more of a volume-knob rather than a tone-knob.

Pros: nice robust sound,

can handle different tunings without any need for adjustments by string or nut.

Cons: little to no proper neck setup (action),

Pick-up might stop functioning (just ask for a replacement),

traces from when it was built.

I wanted a precision bass to try

I have read forums and reviews of Harley Benton guitars and I was getting more and more curios to see if what I was reading was true.

I wanted a precision bass and so I thought I would give this one a go. I was half prepared to be disappointed when it arrived but I was also quite sure the forums were right, and they were.

The first thing I noticed was how well the guitar was packed, the guitar box is in a huge outer box filled with air pillows, it's hard to see how any damage could occur. The guitar is encased in bubble wrap and there is even protective paper wrapping over the strings.

The guitar looks lovely, well made and a lot of care appears to have been taken in making sure that you get a guitar in perfect condition.

The finish is pretty flawless, I think I can find the tiniest of defects if I look really hard but I can on guitars that cost more than five times as much.

The guitar sounds great although I must admit that I changed the strings almost immediately, I plan no other modifications, the guitar plays great, it's comfortable, it looks the part and most important, I love it, I would have been happy to have paid much more for this, I cannot recommend these guitars highly enough!

solid choice for a beginner, and not only

Came with cable (its nice for a beginner that does not have equipment)

build quality is good

looks nice

great starting point for a beginner