Harley Benton PB-Shorty BK Standard Series 5-stars Reviews

Wow

This was purchased by my wife as she wanted a smaller bass. I was against the purchase it as it was the cheapest bass on the entire site and you get what you pay for, but she was adamant that she didn't want to waste money, so against my advice born of 30 years experience, this was the one that she bought.

Was I wrong.

It's an absolute bargain. Straight and true with a nice action and responsive electronics. It has a great sound which is perfectly acceptable. Start to directly compare it against a Fender Precision and it sounds less defined, but not £500 less defined.

I couldn't recommend it highly enough

quality bass for cheap price.

Value for money project instrument.

By no means perfect but for the price of this bass and requisite upgrades, the hardware is naff i will be honest, it stands up to bigger names very easily.

Otherwise very nice. Nice wood, nice frets and the pickup is surprisingly capable and shall be my last upgrade.

This is fantastic

I’ve recently taken up guitar maintenance. Done three, and changed over pickups. For the price, I thought this would be basic, and again, would change the pickups over.....but...it sounds fantastic. I found out Harvey-Benson use an American brand electrics. Pretty damned good. I’m leaving it as it is. 👍👍👍

He just needs to be around

I had no doubts about its quality when I learned that the company belongs to tomann.d

Having received the tool, I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the packaging.

The bass itself is impeccable.

But later some shortcomings came to light.

First, the peg bushings began to come out. At the factory, they were dressed with a chip.

Secondly, the bar anchor was at the adjustment limit.

Third, the frets are not even enough to lower the strings further.

Despite these shortcomings, the bass sounds great and allows you to fully practice both at home and at rehearsals.

Separately, I will mention the strings, on my bass there were short-range D`ADDARIO, they are very good and durable.

Many thanks to tomann for the great tool and great service.

Fine instrument for practicing

Using it for practicing, learning.

It is a light instrument. No complaints at all, for the price it's unbeatable.

The short neck is good for young bassists, kids, women with smaller hands. The initial setup was quite fine, no need additional adjustment.

It sounds good to me, but you can easily upgrade the pickups if you want.

Verdict: recommended first or practice instrument.

What a great little bass for very little cash.

I restrung this with Fender short scale bass string. Transformed the feel and the sound. Easy to play, easy to transport and a good uncomplicated bass tone. Would recommend to any aspiring bass players looking for an easy to play instrument.

Considering the price, it's 5 star

Surprisingly well built, considering the money you pay. I bought it just to have a bass to play around at home but I'm using it in professional recordings.

Wonderful mini retro P bass

I bought this as a project bass to learn how to do things like levelling frets, setup, wiring etc.

This is was a complete surprise. 80 euro and a little setting up and it is a dream. I have put flatwounds on it, lowered the action and it is one of the easiest basses i have ever played. I have basses of 20-30 times the cost which do not play as well.

Yes the frets are a little sharp and the setup from the factory wasnt not good, but that didnt take long to fix.

With flatwound strings on it has wonderful retro Pbass tone and a great passive sound from it. I use it for recording and live play and it is one of my favourites. I made a mirror scratchplate for it and added a thumbrest. Now it's a baby Phil Lynott P-bass.

Just for context, I have been playing bass for 25 years, I studied music in UK & Los Angeles, bass as the main instrument, I have played semi-professional & taught bass. Would recommend this bass in a heartbeat as long as they can get it setup properly once it arrives.

great sound and good handling

amazing sound and really nice to handle

Excellent

I see the price has just gone up 10 euro,but not surprised.Still the best 89 euro you'll ever spend.Perfect setup out of box,etc,If you are a guitar player like me,learning the bass will teach you so much about rhythm,song structure,etc.Don't think about it...Just buy it!!

Surprisingly good bass

This review is somewhat late, as I believe I bought this bass in 2010.

I have had a bass at hand for most of the time I have been playing guitar for songwriting purposes.

My previous bass (an unbranded plywood-bodied P-copy) was retired when I had taken it apart to respray the body and I realised that it was a long-scale neck on a short-scale body! I had stopped writing music at this time and saw no need to replace it.

However, we moved to a different area and I wanted to get back into playing in bands and, after a long time of failing to find a band as a guitarist, bought this bass in the home that it would be easier to get gigs as a bassist. It was!

The bass was light, solid and held tune really well. I wasn't particularly impressed with the rosewood fingerboard (if it actually was rosewood I am not sure), but that's been a problem for me fo years.

The pickup sounded ok, but the bass needed a good setup (intonation, trussrod adjustment and string height) which I did myself. All sounded good and I used this bass until I started gigging when I had moved on the a Squier VM Jazz.

When I sent the Squier off to a luthier for a pro setup I used the HB for a couple of rehearsals and was REALLY impressed with the bass! There was no actual need to have moved on.

The bass has subsequently been sold on, but I have recommended HB instruments to anybody looking instrument suggestions within this budget.

Nicely made and finished

Bought as a back up my main Ibanez.

Well set up.

Strings were a bit heavy duty for my liking, but sound is good.

Nice and simple with one volume and one "tone" control.

Good Quality machine heads.

Easier to transport.

Very happy with this bass.

Budget short scale Bass

I like a short scale Bass, so I took a chance on this joker and do you know what, it’s superb, not just, for the money superb, it really is superb.

No sharp fret ends, paint is flawless, setup out of the box was fine. The only thing I changed was the strings, only because I prefer flat wound....

Sounds? It sounds like a Bass! Really!

If you fancy trying a short scale I don’t think you will be disappointed!

Very good.

I needed a bass for bashing out ideas at home and, as this one had pretty good reviews, I thought I'd give it a try.

It arrived well packaged and well set-up. I only had to tune it and adjust the intonation on 2 strings and it was ready to play.

The tuners are basic but hold tune well, the electrics seem fine and it plays and sounds great. The fretwork and finish are perfect, even the included strings are pretty decent.

Overall I'm impressed with the build quality of such an inexpensive instrument. I can't find a fault with it.

Super for non-bass players

I got this for doing demo recordings. I'm not a bass player, just a guitarist. So, for my purposes it's perfect. It came set up very well—great action and the strings seem adequate, but I bought some flat-wounds I will install soon since I do mainly jazz songs. I also got it so I can have song-writing, jam sessions in my home and folks can just grab an instrument. I've bought several Harley Benton instruments for this purpose. All have been shockingly good for the price. How do they do it?

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.