Harley Benton JB-20 BM Standard Series Reviews

Not the best

Comfortable to hold, It sounds weird, especially D and G, the fretboard is dry and would of been nice with a pre-oil and the texture of the strings feel odd

Best for the price

Frets feel nice and none of them catch when playing. Fretboard feels nice and smooth. Pickups sound nice. Tone and volume knob work well and the tone has a wide range. With a good set up, it rivals squier guitars worth 3-4x it's price.

King of in this price point!

It usually goes without saying that at this price point ‘don’t expect anything amazing’. However, this Harley Benton is a major exception to the rule! This price is ridiculous for the quality you get! When I opened the box the first thing I noticed were how smooth the frets were. No sharp edges, no rattle or dead spots and just very good quality. All the hardwear from the bridge, pots and jack input all the way to the tuners felt very solid and reminiscent of the more affordable series of fenders priced at over £500 more. The pickups are very responsive to dynamics and sounds great with any level of gain (I may have tried some highly distorted metal tones for laugh…). All in all a fantastic option not only beginners but more advanced musicians. This is the first Harley Benton product I’ve bought but certainly will not be the last!

Harley Benton JB-20 BM Standard Series

I'm a beginner, so I cannot say much about it. What I will say is that is a little bit heavy, and you need new strings. It serves its purpose, I used it in a home studio, and gets the job done.

JB-20

For the price, this Bass is fantastic. I'm primarily a guitarist / singer but I wanted a cheap bass to record with, this has been used in a variety of different roles and handles them all fine. Slight buzz in the A string at the head stock but this is easily rectified and I can't complain considering the price.

Can't beat this for the price

Amazing price! Needed a slight setup/adjustment, but plays and sounds like a much more expensive bass!

good price for this quality

Great value

Great value, great fun.

Bargain bass better than most

This is a delayed review as I first got mine in January 2020. I wanted a new bass for recording but didn’t wanna spend an unnecessary amount. It wasn’t until I was reading a post on a forum about basses when someone mentioned Harley Benton. To be honest I’d never heard of them, so I began to research and came across this jazz bass.

At the time of purchase, the bass cost me only £83. At this price I wasn’t expecting much, but when it arrived I was blown away. We all know all guitars are individual and some people won’t get lucky all the time, but I did. Paint work, build quality and all the little details were absolutely spot on. The metallic blue colour looks gorgeous. Action was good and comfortable, but I did get it a tweaked a little, lowering the nut and lowering action a little, which made it play beautifully.

I’m guessing the pick ups are cheap, but they sounded brilliant through my amps and a PA system I also tried. My friends were really impressed with the sound and couldn’t believe how cheap it was. Comparing this bass to one’s I’ve owned and played in the past really proves that you only pay more for the logo on the headstock. This bass has better finishing and build quality compared to a bass I had which was 4 times the price.

The only criticism (which isn’t unexpected due to the price) is sharp fret ends. I got my fret file and smoothed then over in a couple minutes. After that it was perfect. The neck is nice and slim and very comfortable to play. You could upgrade the pick ups and tuners to better specs and make it a project bass but to be honest I’ve had no reason to.

Wether played live or used for recording, this bass is a no brainier for the price. This was my first ever HB instrument, and I was so impressed that I went on to purchase 2 more (acoustic and electric guitar). No other brand gives you value for money like this.

Seems identical to Fender

I'm a guitarist, not a bass player, which is why I decided to buy a lower priced HB, but the quality is impressive. It seems identical to the Fender P bass my friend has.

Incredible bass for the price!

I’ve had this bass for nearly a year, and even after surviving a pretty bad fall, it’s still working perfectly fine. I was really surprised at how good this bass is for the price! I genuinely recommend this bass for any musician looking for one

Does the job

I'm not a bass player by any means, just needed something basic to record bass lines with. This was great out of the box. Happy days. Stays in tune perfectly

Great Beginner bass

The new entry level standard is here,

A good instrument doesn’t have to be expensive,

I’ve recorded with this and it’s really great quality for the price.

Great starter & recording bass for the price.

I'm a guitar player, but I needed to buy a bass to record with as I don't think you get the same effect pitch shifting a guitar down. I wasn't going to spend a shedload of money on a bass guitar that I'm only going to use for recording bass parts so I decided to take a punt on the cheapest bass you can buy and was I pleasantly surprised with what I got!

When it arrived I was expecting that it was going to need a bit of work and a setup for the price paid, but to be fair when I took it out of the box there was very little I needed to do to it. The nut was cut nice and the strings sat snug in it & there was no sharp frets anywhere on the fretboard. The bridge and saddles were fine, and the tone control and volume knobs were perfect. The blue metallic finish is very nice & really makes the bass look a lot more expensive than it is. The action was a little too high for my tastes so I adjusted that to get it to how I like.

The last thing to do was to play it, so I plugged it in and gave it a bash & I was blown away with how nice it played. The neck is nice and smooth for fast playability & the pickups are great for what they are, tone wise it's perfect for what I need it for. The tone controls offer a wide variety of sounds that you can play with.

So in conclusion, if you're just starting out with bass or you're a guitar player first and foremost like me & need a bass guitar for recording, I would definitely recommend picking up one of these as they're well worth the money.

Cant go wrong

So this bass with a bag cost me less than my first ever bass, and the quality is fine after a little setup but cant fault it as a 2nd bass!! would buy again for just another bass in different tuning. Would say tho machine heads are loosing a bit of colour for some reason but again its cheap!!

An amazing bass

I got this bass because I was starting out and everything is perfect for what I need its sound quality is amazing I would 100% recommend this bass to anyone no matter how long they have been playing bass

Amazing Beginner Bass

I have bought two of these guitars. The first I bought on an whim to record some bass parts and sold it to a friend who was beginning to learn bass. I had a few other bass guitars after that but really missed the simplicity and ease of playing that I felt with this one.

Best budget Jazz Bass

Even after spending a fair bit of time playing high-end jazz basses, I was more than satisfied with this instrument and I would recommend it to anyone, beginner or not.

I loved it so much I ended up purchasing two more to give to my students.

There were always minor issues, but nothing I couldn't deal with with proper setup. It's cheap material, of course. A bit of fret polishing, adjusting the machine heads and the bridge and I was good to go.

(Not to mention the colour OH MY GOODNESS it looks so sweet)

They’re practically giving these away

This bass just feels great, and the neck is slick and fast. Both sound, fretwork and intonation was great out of the box - just needed a few adjustments.

The Harley Benton strings it came with had that new crispy sound for quite a while. Would absolutely recommend this bass.

Excellent

Great quality - just as good as 'big name' brands... plays lovely and has a top quality finish