Harley Benton SC-1000 SBK Progressive Line Reviews

Good guitar for a fair price

The guitar came neatly packed and with quick shipping, i had the guitar in a week. I was very pleased with that.

The guitar sounds pretty great too, especially considering the price. I bought this guitar because it was a nice price for a starter as me. My guitar-playing friends are now considering buying guitars from 'Harley Benton' too. We are all amazed by how amasing this thing plays.

So in general, i'm veary pleased by buying this guitar.

There are 2 minor faults with the guitar though. It came delivered with a little scratch at the back of the neck.

Also, there is sometimes (once every week or two, and i play daily half an hour) a problem with the battery. You gotta take it out from time to time in order to let it play again.

I could've sent the guitar back for it though, but i didn't want to waste my learning time for these minor faults.

The best for your hard working money

if you are looking for a GREAT guitar for a super fair price with top notch features like Active pickups and a awesome design? Your search ends here, it doesn't get any better then this for the money.

Instead of buying an 800 or even more expensive guitar you could buy 4 Harley bentons and i have guitar on the ready for every tuning you like!

* Great pickups

* Fast neck and action

* Super cool looking

* Massive bang for buck

Read more about my journey towards this guitar below!

Personally i was looking for a 2nd guitar to play E standard with. I usually play allot of low and down tuned metal stuff and wanted a guitar for some more mainstream tuned songs.

My main guitar is a Schecter Hellraiser with a 81/85 pickup set. Recently it was fully serviced at the local guitar store so it's playing the best it can.

Not wanting to spend another 800 euro on a guitar and doing allot research this Harley Benton really got my attention. You see some negative reviews about the guitar here so you hope you are the lucky one when it arrives.

Out of the package the guitar looked great, except for one little dent on the bottom and it looked as if the paint got loose there and they tipped it with a marker pen. It's a small spot and hey not a 1k guitar so i thought what the hell let's play this thing.

Plugging it in the first thing i noticed was the massive gain the pickups have. Absolutely great, playing around a little with the guitar and tuning it i have to say it is an awesome guitar, it sounds great. The frets could use a little work maybe and the action could be lowered a little (action is user preference).

The tuners aren't as steady as the Gotoh's i had placed on my Schecter. So yeah every now and then you have to tune the guitar a little but that is like once every 3 days (yes i play everyday).

My next guitar will for sure be a Harley Benton again!

Better than my Epiphone LP...............

Much better than expected......Have played it more in a week than I have my LP in 6 months. I see a few new Harley Bentons in my future.

For the price it's amazing guitar.

I've bought this guitar as my first Les Paul model also it's my first guitar with active pickups.The guitar arrived in four days which was really great.This guitar have the great matte finish which feels very smooth and nice.I've found out that the neck pickups a bit noisy than the bridge pickup.The worst part of this guitar is the tuners,they are truly horrible I'd recommend replace them as soon as possible.

First of all I?ve always wanted a guitar like ESP EC-1000 or James Hetfield Iron Cross but we all know what the price is on this awesome guitars. But then i saw this one and it was love at first sight. I have little doubts when i saw the price but i was really surprised when I?ve opened the box and plug the guitar into my amp. The overall quality is just impressive for that price, the mate black finish if awesome I?m in love with it. The active picups on this guitar are really awesome but i prefer EMGs so i put in 60/81 and now its the definition of perfect guitar for me.

Pros:

+Guitar quality

+Price

+Harley Benton

+Sound

+Everything

Cons:

-ABSOLUTELY NOTHING !!

Beautiful looking and sounding guitar but with issues

I have been somewhat of a Harley Benton connoisseur for the last 3 years or so. Decided to try one out on a whim and ended up being blown away. For the price, the quality is un-rivaled! Not to mention, these guitars play and sound amazing! So I have been purchasing HBs fairly regularly for a while now and they're always perfect! ..... until I bought this one.

Upon receiving the guitar I was pleasantly surprised as always with the look and feel of the guitar. All HBs I have bought in the past came immaculately set up and I thought this one would be no different. However the moment I began to play it, I noticed a fairly disappointing issue.

At least 4 of the frets were set WAY too high even to the point that playing in these frets went beyond buzzing and ended with a completely deadened note entirely. No amount of truss rod adjusting/bridge adjusting was going to fix this. Now I was left with the choice of sending it back for a replacement or taking care of the issue myself. Unfortunately I had gotten ahead of myself (based on previous HB purchases) and had gotten rid of all boxes/packaging etc, so decided to sort it myself.

After a tedious fret leveling/re-rounding session the guitar was finally playable. I done my intonation/action set up and this is where the guitar began to shine! All inconvenience aside, this guitar is an absolute beast! It plays like butter and is surprisingly light for an LP model. The HBZ active pickups pack a serious punch too! They are incredibly hot and responsive pickups without generating much, if any feedback! I was definitely starting to feel better about this purchase.

The guitar has many tones available due to the very responsive tone knob and handles a diverse range of genres beautifully. I have used the guitar for heavy metal to punk to pop to country etc, and all sound amazing. The feel of this guitar is that of a guitar 5 times it's price too. Very comfortable.

The hardware is actually very high quality, with a very stable and sturdy bridge and tailpiece. The machine heads are also excellent and hold tune very well and for a good long while, even under strenuous playing.

All in all, this guitar has become one of my favorites, even after the fret issues at the beginning. Also, I must say that this has not put me off buying Harley Bentons in the future and it shouldn't put you off either. I have written this disappointment off as a one-off rare occurrence based on the fact that I have purchased 6 HBs so far and 5 have been immaculate upon arrival! Still got a lot of love for the HBs! All in all, I highly recommend this guitar, but just make sure you thoroughly test it and make sure you are happy with everything before you throw away the boxes!

simply unbeievable

playing and building guitars for quite some years now i have no idea how it is possible to build a guitar of this quality to at a price like this.

I didn't expect much because It seems hardly possible to ship a guitar for that price yet alone build and ship one.

There is no real flaw I could find and I tried to.

The hardware is of decent quality ( no Schaller but precise and good looking )

An overall very professional job I have paid many times of the price of this guitar for guitars that didn't sound as good.

It came almost perfectly set up (but this is just personal preference).

The guitar plays great and the neck feel is very pleasant.

I will probably buy another (or a similar one) soon.

all I can say to wrap this up is that I couldn't build a guitar like this for myself at this price

Metal HB for a good price

After one year I feel like I can write a review for this guitar.

Looks:

Color is matte black, which looks awesome and more "metal". It doesn't pick fingerprints much unless you have greasy, fatty fingers. Binding is of good quality.

Gold colored bridge: teeth of saddles have lost their color, they are now silver. Also bridge has some rost type of wear, you have to look very close to notice them.

Weight is optimal, not so heavy, although feels like it has a mass.

Fingerboard and frets are good, no complaint there, no sharp frets.

Neck: it is not thin like Ibanez, also not so fat. It feels comfortable to put thumb over it.

Tuners: holds tuning for a week even. Maybe small adjustment would be needed after that long of time but during playing I don't need to retune.

Pick-ups: never swapped them, they are active and high-gain, perfect for metal. Three way switch offers tonal variety.

Conclusion: super value for that price, if you want some metal-high gain active guitar you can go for it. It became one of my favourite guitars.

Pretty nice for a starter!

Great guitar to start shreddin'!!

I bought this badboy to get me started with metal, and, well, it does it perfectly! For the price you just can't go wrong. Good sustain, nice playability, well built overall. Some faults in the finish but nothing major. Only one "bad point" : the pickups tend to hiss a lot when pushed to their limit.

You can't go wrong with this guitar!

Best value for this guitar!

This guitar is well built and with a very nice finish. The pickups are very good, i have another guitar with EMG 81/85, but the Harley Benton's HBZ can rock this guitar too.

The neck it's very comfortable, do not be aware that on neck it's Harley Benton and not LTD/Epiphone/Jackson. This guitar is awesome too, don't be aware to try harley benton's products. A best value guitar!

How do you do it for the price

Fantastic instrument, rapid shipping to Australia, very well packaged, awesome price, and the guitar was finished flawlessly, setup perfectly, intonation was spot on. great Price, wow, I will be buying more of these great guitars.

Good guitar, terrible set-up and tuning pegs

Bought this with a Blackstar HT Metal head for a project that needed authentic metal sounds. Didn't need to be excellent, just good enough.

Good news: guitar looks and sounds the business.

Bad news: intonation, string height, and tuning pegs all awful. Intonation is out by a quarter tone across the neck, string height is such that you damp open strings in some chords because your fingers are sat between the strings instead of over them, and the tuning pegs are pitiful. I have a Harley Benton Custom Line ResoKing which is a favourite guitar for slide, so they do know how to do this stuff - although the pegs are poor on that as well.

If you know how to fix this stuff and have time, this guitar is a bargain. If you don't then budget £50-70 for a guitar tech to do it. Still a bargain, I think, but this might appeal to young metal players without the extra cash, so you need to know this in advance. You won't be doing any shredding otherwise!

HB SC1000

Brilliant guitar was amazed .

pickups are great over all 100%

Very Nice Sound

As always, arrived quickly and well packaged. Set-Up pretty good out of the box, just a bit of tuning. Looks really nice but somehow looks a little basic compared to my other guitars but they mainly have more vintage looks. The matt black finish is very good but is a fingerprint magnet. Came with a 9v battery which was good. The real question is what does it sound like? I bought this as I need a heavier sounding guitar for recording, does it do the trick? ....Yep :) Those active pickups really sing and the sustain is unbelievable. If you are looking for a cheap guitar for learning metal or need to add one to your collection for those darker harder tones, go buy it.

Edit: A great guitar but never got to grips with its constant heavy tones. If you're looking for a guitar with a range of sounds and tones, this isn't the one for you. This is just full on noise, distortion, chug and sustain all the time if you run it through any gain, without gain its quite ordinary and lifeless.

Nice looking guitar

My friend ordered this guitar as a beginner guitar but it could be a perfect one for later too.

It looks really nice and the build quality is nice too.

For this price you cannot get better LP style guitar

( nice finishes, not bad electronics, playable neck).

It's hard to find a usable low price guitar for heavier music, but it's a great choice for that.

A very nice guitar at a budget price

This one is really nice. The matt black finish just adds to the looks and the active pickups deliver a very competent sound.

As the owner of several real Gibson Les Pauls, the shape appealed to me instantly and the two octave neck is a welcome addition.

The hardware is more than adequate and this guitar was very playable out of the box. I was able to drop the action considerably with no buzzing and found myself playing it a lot where I expected to use it just on the odd occasion.

It has a unique sound and feel all of its own, and is very nice to play, which is all you can ask from an instrument.

For this kind of price, you would expect a lot less than you get, but this is good wood with good hardware and punches well above its weight.

No regrets buying this one !

Amazing for the price

So after having this guitar for 2 days and using it for at least 12 hours im in love with it.

it sounds like an esp with emgs and have the quality if a guitar 5 times the price

anyone thinking about getting one when they are in stock just do it... you wont regret it.

Harley Benton SC-1000 VB Progressive Line

got this guitar over a year ago, out of the box the quality & finish looked top notch, playability & sound excellent. Almost 2 years later everything still remains top quality, the finish remains as new, as dose the pickups and kit & no fretboard problems. standard clean and maintenance is all it has required. all in all this guitar punches far above it's price range.

Unbeatable for the money

I bought this guitar on a whim and have to say I was greatly surprised. To say this is a bargain is an understatement, Finish is nice and smooth, gold hardware really does look great against the black and feels quality. The level of binding is brilliant its nice and even with the rest of the finish.

The happiest surprise for me has been the pickups and sound and play-ability of this thing, its great! For those who may be put off with the active pickups please don't be. they are not as severe as emg's but are happy to chug along to Metallica riffs no bother at all. turn the gain down abit and level out the tone and she'll sing the blues awesomely!

Neck profile is nice and comfortable, not too thick and not too thin, with plenty of access to the higher register and the guitars satin like finish is nice to the touch and allows quick movement over the entire length.

I plan to pick up a white one in the next while too.

Really good guitar

First impressions are very good, it looks fantastic and as far as I can see there are no cosmetic issues at all.

The setup is very good (it could be played right out of the box with nothing more than a quick tune). The frets are well finished with minimal buzz, bends feel nice and clean with no scraping on the frets. The soft satin finish feels really nice and fast on the neck, and the comfort cut on the back of the body is great. The fretboard could do with a little oil but I'm happy for the moment to leave it, the action also could drop a little but it's fine where it is for now. In fact for the 1st time ever I'm not even going change the strings right away, I'll let it settle and play for a few days first.

Really very pleased with it.

In summary, I hit the Harley Benton jackpot, It's another £100 guitar that feels like a £300 one, it's a quality bit of kit and it will be my metal axe of choice from now on.