Harley Benton JB-40FL 3-Tone Sunburst Reviews

No Brainer purchase!

At this price it would be hard to complain about anything. It arrived today and was decently set up out of the box. Fit and finish were flawless. Tuned it up and it plays like a dream! String height is set perfectly and so is neck relief. Intonation is a tiny bit sharp at the 12th position, but easily fixed. Have not got around to that yet, I finally set it down for a few minutes to write this.

Sounds good direct to amp. Really got fun when ran it through my board to get Jaco tones! I went bonkers on a jazz odyssey and ended up doing some swing too. Not really upright bass sounding, but something in between with the round wound strings. (probably because it is what kind of strings Jaco used) Even with the rounds, can get a wonderful old school Motown/Jazz sound easily. I have some DR Black Beauty flats to put on it for a more traditional upright/fretless sound to install later.

The old common issue others were seeing appears to have been fixed. Poles line up perfectly with the strings.

Hard to believe you can have this much fun and get this kind of quality at this price!

Great Bass

This is easily one of the best fretless basses I have owned. The finish is perfect. There are a few tiny filler spots missing on the neck where the fret lines are but they are so small it doesn't affect playability. The pots are garbage. The taper is good to about 80% then it drops off drastically. For this price you won't find a better fretless anywhere. Highly recommended.

Don't know how they do it.

I really don't. Even for twice the price I'd be hard pressed to find something to complain about on this bass. The fit and finish are great, ready to play out of the box aside from needing to be tuned up. Pickups sound pretty good, hardware is solid, no fretwork to critique obviously but the fretboard is nice and cleanly finished. Love the neck on this thing too, nice slim profile and super smooth to play.

Can't speak for any of the other HB models but this thing right here is an absolute steal for the price you're paying, even with the extra money for intl shipping tacked on.

Impressive...most impressive.

Really,really, REALLY good value for the money.

I needed a fretless for home studio. This fit the need at an affordable price.

Wood quality is top notch as well as the finish on the body and neck. 2 piece body and I could not find the joint! Hardware is what you would expect, functional. Pickups and electronics are 'meh' or underwhelming to say the least. Will most likely swap out for EMG's and a high mass bridge. Tuners are fine.

Overall I am very happy with this bass. I will buy more Harley Benton instruments in the future.

WOW!!!

Awesome bass for this price... I was shocked when I first time play this instrument. So great feeling and pure tune... If you need fretless or you wanna have some fun on bass guitar, buy this one and you will not regret it! 5 stars to this awesome instrument!!!

Good Value for money

I wanted to get into playing fretless and this is an excellent starter especially for the price.

My biggest issue with this was the weight, nowhere online does it mention exactly how heavy this bass is but I can say that my leg would go numb after playing seated for long periods.

Great value for the money

This is my first Harley Benton bass. Considering this bass was less than £130 delivered, it is incredible value for the money!

It's a really nice weight and playable straight out of the box once tuned. It did not need any setting up.The finish is really nice and the neck is really comfortable to play. Good strings on it too!

Minor problems are that the tuner ferrules were not fully pushed into place (easy to fix by hand) and there is hum/buzz when turning the tone pot round from bass to treble. The control cavity has no shielding so I lined it with shielding tape but this has not stopped the noise.

Otherwise I have to say, it is amazingly good for VERY LITTLE money.

Best bass for the money, anywhere

Don't even think about buying a second hand bass, when you can get this for such a bargain price. Colour and finish is flawless. Neck if we'll finished with Matt finish so doesn't get sticky. The tone pot could be better, very little tone change, but has the tone I want so not bothered. A couple of extra euros at manufacture could sort this out with very little difference in selling price and would be weĺ worth it. Only reason for 4 stars are the strings. Roundwound on a fretless bass? Damages the fretboard and is wrong wrong wrong. Flatwound or tapewound please.

This should not be possible with this price

An impressive bass for a ridiculous price. It was great out of the box, almost no pickup hiss which is standard for Jazz basses. Impressed by the build quality and the sound it produces. I think it's impossible to get a better bass for this price.

Just great!

I'm new in the bass trouble, I am a pianist, guitarist and a syntn junkie.

I tried a lot of fretless basses such as Fender AM Pro Jazz Bass FL, Marcus Miller M7 5st Fretless, Fender SQ CV 60s and some custom basses. I saw Harley Bentons JB-40FL and I thought it was a great deal, so I bought one.

Once I get it, I started playing and I was really impressed with the sound. I recommend it for beginners, but for more professional use I'm not sure. I am an audio engineer and tried to put it in some tracks (with and without a DI), it works great but the sound needs some "make up", it's not so "warm" (this is really just a small detail).

At the end I definitely recommend this bass, this price is unbeatable!

Excellent fretless sounds!

Unbelievable value, a great instrument.

Don't be fooled or put off by the low price - this is not cheap rubbish. Build quality is good to very good, I could not find anything to dislike and see no reason to think the bass will not last well. I'm sure it will give many years of use.

Playability is good, nice action and comfortable neck - and my hands and fingers are medium size, not large. Sounds from the pickups are very good, plenty of variety and just what you would expect from this style of bass. The controls give adequate variation in volume and tone and really don't need upgrading for this to be a useable / gig-worthy bass, but if you wanted to upgrade pickups and electronics in the long term, I think the body and neck are well worth it.

Did I say it also looks great? It really does. This bass is going to challenge my playing for a long time - it can produce such great sounds it inspires me to keep working on it.

Little Dissapointed.

I rate it 3 stars because of the nut. Everything else is ok.

Nut is not properly aligned. No 4 string are almost at the edge og the neck. I need to purchased a nut and have it installed by a guitar tech to make it playable.

Excellent fretless bass

I received this bass about 10 days ago. It took about a week to arrive and I was able to track its progress easily. The box arrived in good condition. The honeymoon period is over now so I can be fairly objective now.

The fit and finish on the guitar is excellent.

I am struggling to find any fault with it. The neck is a beautiful tight fit to the body. The plastic nut is cut well and the slots are neatly done although there is a little white plastic debris from the filing process that I will tidy when I fit flat wound strings. I bought Fender flat wound strings with the order and pushed up the price to give me free shipping.

The set up, string height / intonation are fine.

The materials and hardware are perfectly acceptable. I have fitted Schaller strap lock buttons.

The fretboard deserves special mention. Not only was the neck perfectly finished, the fret board is made of blackwood (Pinus radiata). It looks like rosewood in colour but appears harder with the kind of tight grain associated with ebony. If someone told me this was an expensive wood, I would have no reason to doubt it.

I bought this bass as a inexpensive fretless for modding but nothing needs changing straight away and it's perfectly gig-able.

As time goes by, I might fit brass saddles, upgrade the tuners if they wear prematurely and upgrade the electronics if the mood takes me. I considered fitting a pick guard but the guitar is finished so well, it seems a shame to mess with it.

One last thing. It's quite heavy. I don't know how many pieces of wood make up the American Ash body. Looking at it, it seems like one piece but it could be 6 pieces and veneer front and back.

In any event, it's a great bass for little money. I have been playing for many years and have quite a few guitars of varying value. The Harley Benton JB-40FL 3 Tone Sunburst is a worthy addition to my collection.

Highly recommended.

A good entry-level fretless

I've had this bass now for over a year and I still play it almost every day. This bass is unbeatable at its price. I use it mostly for practice and recording, though it has been gigged without issues.

The pros:

It's pretty well made and durable. I stringed it with nylon tapewounds and it sounds very smooth and feels great to play. Easy to get near the "Jaco" sound as well if you crank up the bridge pickup (probably even easier with roundwounds). The cons section of this is pretty much looking a gift horse in the mouth, since there is no other bass on the market at this price that is this well made. The tuners are solid and hold tune well. The neck is nice and smooth, fretboard pretty well-leveled. The bass is on the heavy side and neck-dives a bit. Not to the point that it gets annoying, though.

The cons (I am nit-picking here, these are all very minor flaws considering the price of the bass):

It isn't perfect, obviously. To get the plastic wrap off the metal scratch plate, you have to unscrew the plate, all the potentiometers and the jack plug (not a big deal, but you need a screwdriver and wrenches, also the knobs themselves are really hard to pull off at first as they seem to be glued on). The bridge is screwed down in the wrong place, laterally off by about 1-2 mm, meaning the strings don't align with the pickups properly and they aren't perfectly centered on the fretboard (this is not visible in the pictures because they are taken at an angle - possibly on purpose - sound output is still good though). My fretboard had one dead spot near the first "fret" on the D string. The truss rod is weird - I can't loosen it enough to get proper relief in the neck, it's at its maximum looseness and at that point the bolt starts to come off - it's still workable though. The tone knob doesn't seem to do much to the sound at all.

Honestly, just buy it, you aren't gonna find a fretless with a better price/performance ratio, trust me, I've tried.

Gorgeous

It might cost 400 ¤ more and be still a good purchase.

Unbelievable value for money

If you are considering trying out fretless playing but don't want to break the bank then this is the instrument for you.

This was my first Harley Benton and my first fretless and I have to say I am very impressed with the the whole buying experience.

In terms of looks this bass is stunning. The paintwork is spot on with no marks or blemishes at all.

Playing comfort: it's nicely balanced and sits well on the strap for standing playing.

The slim jazz neck is a delight to play. I have small hands but this neck is very comfortable for me. The fret lines make it so much easier for the novice fretless player to get awesome tones.

It is a touch on the heavy side but that's what you get with a good quality ash body.

There are a some issues that mean I can't quite give it 5 stars.

1. Setup; the neck is perfectly straight with no relief which is exactly how it should be for a fretless. However, the action is set too high and the nut slots need to be deeper to bring the strings closer to the fingerboard. It has the same nut and slots as a fretted jazz. The strings are flat rather than radiused to match the fingerboard radius. This is stuff that I can fix but not everyone has the tools.

2. Shielding / earhing: there is a significant amount of pickup hum unless the volume controls are even for both pickups. Again a fairly easy fix although it does entail taking the bass apart to shield all the cavities with either copper foil or conductive paint and ensuring the earth wire to the bridge is making good contact.

3. Strings: the bass is factory fitted with D'darrio round wounds which are of course really good strings. However, round wounds are not ideal for the fretless fingerboard. I would prefer to see them fitted with flats or pressure wounds. I replaced mine with D'darrio nylon wounds which give awesome warm tones that suit my playing style very nicely.

Overall this is an exceptional instrument for the price and I do recommend it.

With a bit adjustment it's great bass

I needed a fretless bass so I got this one.

For this money it's a great bass and you can invest some little more and have a great one. With some minor adjustment I made it to play.

It plays good.

Shielding is needed!

New strings are required.

Wood quality is good.

Fingerboard is good.

Tuning pads are good.

Neck is feels strong,

cons :

pickups, bridge, strings, no shielding.

Please don't complain about the weight, It's the same weight as any high end Jazz bass.

I totally recommend this bass to all fretless seekers you will have to invest some more money to make it sound great.

Overall you have a great foundation to build a great fretless bass.

Overall great value

I had to wait a while for this bass because of supply /demand and a backlog of QA. Arrived with roundwounds as expected but I replaced them with flatwounds within a few days as the roundwounds were already showing signs of marking the board. It took a bit of setting up the way I like lt which is fair enough, though if you're a bit fussy about setup then be prepared to put a bit of work in. I didn't expect otherwise for myself but I wouldn't expect to open the box and be roadworthy. Pickups are a bit noisy, but adding a bit of top end cut with the tone seems to sort it out. Yes I know, single coils and all that but even so, I have an sx p bass with singles on and its as quiet as a mouse. Build quality is excellent of course, nice piece(s) of ash. Flatwounds totally transformed the bass. Overall very happy.

Very happy

I'm really happy with this bass, especially at this low price. Arrived in great condition. Roundwound strings gave it a great Jazz tone but I was aware of some wear on the fretboard so I put some flatwounds on instead - at this price I've no complaint about the choice of strings. It still sounds like a Jazz bass and has a lovely fretless twang to it.

My only niggle has been a slightly loose E tuner but only very slightly. Otherwise it's a joy to play with a great range of tones. It looks amazing as well.

I'm really enjoying this bass and would recommend it to anyone wanting to give fretless a go.

Amazing budget fretless

My son wanted a fretless bass to go with his Ibanez fretted bass, but I couldn't afford a lot. This didn't cost a lot and it is a gem. Possibly/probably a fretted model without the frets being fitted because the fret lines are there - this is good though because it really helps with finger placement - having dot markers on the edge wouldn't be the same. With this you can see exactly where every finger/note combination is. When the guitar arrived one of the tuners was very stiff - I took it apart and realised that there were two spring spacers/tensioners inadvertently fitted - took one out and it worked fine. The fretboard was a bit dry, so I oiled that. Now it plays like a dream - almost anyone who plays guitar can pick it up and play it in tune. I have fitted Daddario flatwound strings and it slides so smoothly without fear of damaging the fretboard. A brilliant bass. Son's bass teacher very impressed. Gorgeous to look at as well. Buy it - don't like it send it back.