Harley Benton JJ-45OP Natural 3-stars Reviews

It's a functional bass

The bass arrived today in good shape in only 5 days from Germany which to me is amazing. The first thing that struck me was how blah the finish was. Absolutely bare bones. I like natural finishes and thought this was what it was. It's not. It's a plain brown stain with absolutely no shine to it at all. The hardware and knobs are of the inexpensive Asian import variety. The tuners are smooth turning. The strings are fairly well centered on the pickup poles. I plugged it up and played it absolutely flat as it has an active eq. Thin, thin, thin. I had to turn the bass up all the way for any bottom. The treble I could leave flat. It sounds ok for live. Much too noisy to record with. The build is about what you would expect from an inexpensive import. Besides the blah finish, it has some sharp fret edges and lots of loose screws. It'll take a couple of hours to get everything tight and make it playable although the action was pretty good right out of the box. I really can't complain too much. For under $200 it's about what one would expect. It's an okay bass for a beginner, or for a second bass for gigs which is what I plan for it.