Harley Benton PB-Shorty BK Standard Series 4-stars Reviews

Harley Benton PB-Shorty BK

Bass is good! The price corresponds to the quality. Sound, premium bass. The quality of work and materials is good. There is one drawback: the bass guitar has poor balance. The neck constantly falls when playing while sitting. Otherwise the bass does its job! Well done Harley Benton!

Budget friendly PBass Shorty

For beginner bass players, especially youngsters or people with small hands, a full scale bass can be daunting. This inexpensive short-scale version of the classic Precision bass is an excellent alternative.

All the basic and time-tested features of the Precision bass are there, from the punchy tone of the split-coil pickup to the simplicity of the single volume and tone controls. The finish is classic, the build is sturdy and no-nonsense. What more could a starting player hope for?

I recommend this bass for beginners, but also for players looking for an affordable alternative to the Squier Mini-Precision bass. The bass is small, but the sound is all that you would expect from a PBass.

Very satisfied, great value for the price !

A great modding platform

Mine came slightly damaged in the transport from mishandling, however it plays perfectly fine so I didn't bother returning it.

The pickup was good sounding, bit ballsy and punchy as P bass should be, unfortunately it was also quite microphonic. Luckily, I ordered an EMG P pickup with it, installed it, and now I have a bass of my dreams, and feel like I hacked the system. Why? Because the body is perfect, the frets too, there was no need for setup, finish is impeccable.

Is it the best looking bass out there? No, it would be way cooler with black pickguard. The pickguard is not perfect, it fits bit too tightly and it was screwed in uprecisely, and hides many missed screw holes, but I do not care with this price.

The sustain is great.

Too bad the nice original pot caps are too small for the EMG pots.

I would recommend this bass to anyone who needs a good workhorse, and a modding platform.

great for modding

Bought this to mess around with and upgrade. Lovely little bass for not much money. You could simply replace the strings on this bass and you're ready to go. Sounds good out of the box. The white pickguard doesn't look nice but it's easy replaced. Highly recommend this for beginners or for modding.

Silly money - just buy it

I wanted a bass partly to mess with it / modify it. Strings not amazing so change them. I'm putting fender pickups in it. So It will end up costing about £235. I wanted a P style and sound + I wanted a short scale so this is ideal. Love it.

Value for money

Its everything i could hope for, for this price, and more. It occasionally has some problems with the electronics, the volume and tone knobs. The strings it came with were very bad. Other than that, very worth it.

Très bon rapport qualité/prix

Je cherchais un instrument pour la vocation naissance de mon fils, mais à un prix serré (on n'est jamais très sûres des vocations naissantes de nos chère têtes blondes...). Pas beaucoup de choix pour des short scale pas trop chères, je lui ai donc donné sa chance. Etant donné son prix, l'instrument est très bien. Il sonne correctement, les frets n'accrochent pas. Elle pique un peu de la tête, mais normal vu la taille du corps et sa destination plutôt "enfant". Je n'ai que deux reproches : j'ai dû resserrer les écrous des potars et du jack dès le déballage, et les mécaniques ont pas mal de jeu. Du coup, mon fils qui débute a un peu de mal à l'accorder. Pour le reste, elle fait très bien le job, à un prix canon.

Great for the money, totally functional as a bass.

I'm not a bass player. I'll just open with that. I'm a rhythm player with a bass guitar.

Picked this up for £75 plus P and P on a whim just because I can, I own a collection of budget guitars (Squiers, Indies, a StarForce, a... Thing) and fancied trying Bass again.

Out of the box, my first impression was how TINY this is, barely any longer than an Affinity Strat and if anything with a smaller body. It has strings and tuners, you turn the tuners and the pitch of the strings changes. Two knobs, one for volume and one for tone. They both work. Out of the box the action and intonation are both fine. Tuning stability is better than any Squier I've encountered, it does slip a touch but especially having new strings it's pretty good really. Build quality is completely acceptable without being exceptional in any way, it's £75 so I wasn't expecting anything life-changing and didn't get it. The fretwork stands out as being the worst part (sharpish ends and not the smoothest frets) but far from a deal breaker. The neck finish stands out for me as the best part. Almost a semi-satin, shiny enough to be fast with dry hands yet satin enough to not stick to sweaty mitts.

It sounds perfectly acceptable to my ears, I'm not a bassist so I can't compare it to others I own, but it sounds more pleasing to my ears than my Affinity Strat or Standard Tele did with stock pickups.

I'm not crazy about the string tension, it feels a little bit loose for my personal preference, again I'm a guitarist which probably skews my judgement. I'll put some heavier strings on at some point to mitigate this.

In conclusion, if you're looking for a bass to learn, or to do a bit of home recording, this thing is absolutely fine. Given what £75 would buy you back in the day it's a revelation. Don't worry about buying something that's essentially unusable, this is a perfectly good instrument. If you're coming from guitar, the short scale length is really easy to get used to, too.

Good starter bass

I bought this bass in 2020 and it is OKAY. It is the most average bass guitar, really nothing to write to home about, but it gets the job done.

In conclusion, this is the type of bass that you want to start with. Great price, and very reliable.

Very good bass to start practicing with a little bit of setting and change of pick-ups you can even use it for a wide variety of genres. Haven't changed pick-ups but I am still using it for my recordings/demos.

Short scale Bass from HB

Very nice sounding and very playable short scale bass from HB.

Not the best in the world but it works just fine for the money.

:)

After a small amound of time setting this bass up and changing the tuning keys with Squier's and the strings, it was perfect, i was surprised with the sound! Very fun bass to play, the action is nice and low. Be sure to buy some tuning keys, mine arrived with one broken.. don't expect the perfect quality. Overall its a nice instrument, a bass that you can grab anytime, travel with it and dont worry much..

SHARP FRETS!

Great bass...Great value...SHARP FRETS! What a pity for this is a simple fix! The frets actually cut my fingers, so I will have to get something done with them . A real shame as if quality control were on duty the day it was made ..it couldn't possibly have passed!!! OR could it????? Having checked the QC label...QC 5 should be sacked!

Great apart from one bridge grub screw was faulty.

Cheap bass = cut hands?

My band needed a bass for the new bassist, and we figured that this one is affordable and a short-scale, which would be perfect for a teenage girl who just started playing bass.

The bass sounds great, but when it comes to playing there was an issue... the frets were sharp, and cut up the bassists hands, but I just used some sandpaper and all was well. So in general, I recommend it, it just requires to be set up and fixed in a few places (frets). Other than that the quality of it is not an issue eather.

Sounds Like A Bass But Needs Work

This Bass sounds great for what it is. Cheapy little tone pots and overall cheap construction and it still manages to sound nice. The major issue with mine was the frets. They weren't just rough they were absolutely rusted. I quickly polished them to make the bass to a playable level. Tuners are also just blah. For 87$ what more do you want? Honestly, if I got a bass without rusted frets it would be 5 stars.

Great for the Price

I have used this bass for many gigs and practice sessions alike. I started on a full-scale bass and although it was not uncomfortable for my hand size, as a long time guitar player I was much more comfortable with the shorter scale. For a relatively low pice, the bass sounds as good as any higher end bass. However, it is not the most durable piece of equipment I've ever bought. It's light weight accounts for a slight weakness and the intonation has become slightly flat at the higher frets. It is likely not a tool for the heavy handed. However, for a low price it is 100% worth it as this is an easy fix with the right knowledge (or a good technician) and I will always vouch for tis bass.

Cant beat it for the money

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

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