Harley Benton PB-Shorty BK Standard Series Reviews

Don't bother with anything else...

Unless you are a pro or a snob, there is nothing this bass lacks compared to the basses with four times the price. Seriously, the finish and play-ability are superb, and it sounds more than decent.

If you are just starting, don't look any further and buy this. Learn how to play, save some money and in 3-4 year get yourself a nice Mustang or a P-bass. Even if you give it away, you will lose less money than if you would buy something more expensive and then sell it.

Parts

used neck/hardware/electronics as a donor for a bass i built out of a shovel, and all of it is very stable and sounds great. ridiculous quality for the price

Fantastic value for the money

Unboxing Harley Benton PB Shorty was really a nice surprise. I have to say that I did not expect too much for the price I paid for this one. My feedback is based on the quality of this bass considering the very low price. After a few months of playing it I am very sure that this bass is the best bass in the market for the price. This one also beats all of the basses I have tried in local music stores that cost up to 10 times as much as this one.

My first impression was the looks of it as I unboxed it. It looked just fantastic and the finish was perfect. This bass is very light and is really easy to handle. Setup, intonation, playablility and feel was great right out of the box so I just had to tune it.

After playing for a short while I noticed that the fret ends kind of cut the skin on my left thumb. This was no big deal. It took no more than 5 minutes to file the sharp fret ends and after that it has been a dream to play. I give 4 quality stars because of the sharp fret ends.

I also have to add that the neck has got a kind of satin feel to it, something I prefer over a gloss neck since they tend to feel kind of sticky. This is my first short scale bass and as a guitar player I find this a lot easier to play than basses with longer scale.

After plugging the bass in I was sure that this was a good deal. It is quite easy to find the different tones with this one. I use this bass in the studio and have played it clean and with lots of different effects. It sounds a bit thin and weak played clean, and that is the only reason it get 4 stars for the sound. The machine heads is doing a good job and this bass stays in tune. I also want to add that this bass is usually perfectly in tune even if I have not played it for a few days.

Pros:

Fantastic value for money

Perfect finish

Stays in tune

Great playability

Good sound

All in all a great product

Cons:

Sharp fret ends on the "thumb side" of the neck.

A better patent for picup height adjustment. I would prefer a better solution than the kind of foam block under the pickups. It hardens and then it becomes an issue to adjust the height.

To wrap up my opinions on the Harley Benton PB shorty I have to say that you really can't go wrong with this one. I will say that this bass is perfect for the beginner (even if you have to pay someone for a setup), but I will also recommend this for more experienced players. This is really a great instrument.

Excellent

for it's money, but sound good, plays good.

Cant beat it for the money

Bought to give away as a present. Great little bass for little money.

Bang for Buck: Little Beast

I bought this bass just to have a short scale to slap around on for fun, but man did this little monster surprise me. Aside from needing a bit of setup, this bass can jam right out of the box. The tone and volume knobs both do their jobs quite well, but I had to fix the intonation and lower the pickup before I was truly happen with the sound.

The neck feels great to bop around on and the look is classic. The tuning heads work well and I've had very little problems with it going out of tune. Put this thing through a little compression and it's more than ready for a jam session. As I mentioned, I did have to drop the pickups down a bit to prevent clipping when I played slap. Otherwise this thing sound great for under a hundred bucks.

Pros:

- Great feel, action, and appearance

- Knobs do their job

- High quality for the price

Cons:

- Quite a bit of fret buzz out of box (easily fixable)

- Clipping issues with pickups (easily fixable)

- Some cosmetic flaws (personal: large knot on headstock)

Summary: Great bass for fun or learning.

Another success from Harley Benton

I was looking for a cheap short scale bass, and this is not only the cheapest but it's half the price from the next one up the ladder, the Ibanez TMB30. Not believing the Ibanez would be double this bass I went with this one and I'm happy I did that.

The bass is light, sounds good and it's solid like any good old P-Bass. I'd recommend to anyone that wants to try a short scale bass and not to spend too much money.

Now I also have a Fender Mustang, and even though the Mustang is much better, it costs almost ten times the price of this one, and it is not ten times better!

Great bass, but needs tweeking to get it right

After ajusting the action (a lot), it plays like a charm.

Decent travel or child bass

Very good for the money.

Decent fretwork, sounds good. Finish is good. Action very usable. Bought as a first bass for my 11 year old son. He loves it. The 3/4 size makes it very portable or good for younger players.

You would struggle to do better for the price

Out of box ready to rumble!

I have bought many HB guitars and this one is my 2nd HB Bass. The first one was a JB-75NA and was a great bass out of the box. This Shorty is the same! Nothing to complain here and for the price its just amazing!

Fretwork is perfect! Polished and crowned AND rounded frets! 79 Euros!

The Roseacer fretbaord looks more like Ebony to me than the rather ugly Roseacer one get on the CST or SC model HB guitars! Very happy with this bass!

The stock strings were wrapped into oily paper to keep them fresh and shiny. Stock strings sound very punchy and will not change them any time soon.

Tuners works as they should. Body paint and satin neck finish are perfect.

Im yet to open the pickguard and look under the hood. I do get slight buzz when I take my hands off the strings so some shielding will be needed Im guessing.

All in all, fantastic buy and surely suits me well as my main instrument is a guitar (Shorty) !

Long term feedback, 4 years of use now

I bought this short scale bass for my son as a birthday present four years ago. Since then it has been played regularly for school bands and his own band so has seen its share of travel and use. The short scale was chosen specifically as he had small hands, being only young at the time, and it has been an excellent bass to learn on.

Out of the box there was very little set up required, other than a very small amount of intonation adjustment within the individual string lengths, which I do on every instrument anyway. Since then it has worked superbly and sounds good in the band. In comparison to a 34" Fender it lacks a small amount of tone but it is also significantly cheaper!

After four years, the bass is still in use and now sports a Seymour Duncan quarter pound pickup, so I think we've definitely had good value and I can't see it being retired any time soon.

Nice guitar for starting

Nice quality and looking bass.

Amazing bass for the price

Short Scale bass players will love everything about this bass. I have been playing bass for 50 years and I just switched to short scale 5 years ago. Short scale basses like this one are hard to find. Most look like a toy bass, not this bass. The fit and finish is flawless. I am in love with the Roseacer fretboard. I did not want a black and white bass with a brown fretboard.. the BLACK Roseacer fretboard makes the look POP. The neck is fantastic, I did lower the action, but the truss rod needed no adjustment. The sound is great, I play through a Behringer head, and a bit of compression gives me all the sound I need. I very much recommend this bass.

Great Budget beginner Bass's

I bought three of these for some of my younger students. Right out the box, after quick tune these basses play beautifully. Good tones available for the price. The bodies are a little heavy for younger students while sitting or standing over a long period. Frets ends were very sharp and undressed as new, so much so that I felt it was too dangerous to land over to young students. But after a quick file on each fret top and bottom, everything was good. Having said that I would still highly recommend. Well done to Harley Benton for providing such high grade beginner budget instruments. If HB put a little bit more into quality control, finish fret edges that would be great. Once that was sorted they are beautiful to play and sound good too.

Better Than Average

Nice bass, better than average; better than a Squier Bronco I tried in a shop, and my old Marlin Sidewinder. I was looking for a Fender P-Bass Jr clone. I tried this one and the Jack & Danny Bass guitar PB Mini. I returned the J&D and kept this one.

My first bass

I used play bass during the jams but I never really got one.

This short scale is very comfortable, it is shorter than a normal bass so it's less stressful to play, especially if you are a guitarist that approach for the very first time this instrument.

What can i say? the sound seems very clear, actually I am satisfied with the product.

An Excellent value for money, quality bass

I just love this bass. It came all set up, plug in and play. it stays in tune although it hangs out all over the house waiting to be played, spending some time on the sofa keeping the dogs off. Plugged in and played it is a dream. Easy to move up and down the neck, I can get a good heavy bass sound out of it particularly through my Harley Benton 80W gig amp. How do they do it for the price? Wizardry.

Great starter bass

Great bass for the price

A Lovely guitar

I love this guitar, it is so much more than the price suggests! I have changed the strings but have no other modifications planned.

If you want a short scale bass in a classic design I doubt you will ever get more value for money than you will from this guitar, it's awesome, so well finished, well packaged, I cannot see how anybody could ever be disappointed with this.

OK to start learning bass on .... but that's about it

I bought this for my four year old to start getting used to the sound of the bass. Nothings says 'let's please the neighbours' than a four year old heavy plucking a bass through a 200W bass amp.

All in the all, the bass is OK. The frets were very sharp and uncomfortable so I had to file them smooth. I only heard a few people mention this so it might be a rogue quality issue, I could have sent it back, but it was only a few minutes to sort out.

Some quite different volume levels between the strings, so a few adjustments helped the situation, might be cheap pick-up issue.

Let's be realistic, this is a cheap short scale bass, good for practicing or for the 'smaller people' to learn on. I don't think I would gig it, but I don't think it was ever intended for this.

For the price, you cannot even buy all the parts separately for this price, so in that sense it is quite a bargain.

Buy it for what is intended for and you won't be disappointed. Anyway, I am sure my neighbours are starting to like it more now, they have stopped banging on the wall.

Great buy for the price, but don't expect miracles.

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Update after a few weeks: I decided to so a deep fret sorting out and filed down the sharp fret, relevelling and re-dressed all of the frets until they were a smooth a silk. It felt like a guitar where the fingerboard wood had shrunk a bit and the fret were sticking out, but I have also bought guitars much much more expensive than this with similar issues. As I said before for the price it is a good buy and there isn't really any competition in the price range. Albeit what I would charge for a complete fret levelling and redressing is probably more than the cost of the guitar, but once it was all, sorted it was a very nice playable bass guitar.

p.s. Change nut, it is really nasty cheap plastic