Harley Benton MB-4 SBK Deluxe Series 4-stars Reviews

Great bass, but needs some changes

It's a great price and sounds fantastic, but if you turn down one of the volume controls to play a single coil pickup, there's barely any difference between one coil and the other.

I understand that re-using the same 4-hole control plate from the other models helps keep down manufacturing costs, but replacing one of the volume controls with a series/parallel/single-coil switch provides far more tone options.

Fortunately, that's an easy mod to do yourself.

Cool bass, but with quality issues

I've had several HB basses over the years, and my current go-to is a modded PB-20 SBK. So, I wanted to try the MB-4.

What I liked:

- The tone

- The neck (very enjoyable profile)

- The look

What I didn't like:

- Two pots were very gritty, one very difficult to turn

- There were paint blemishes on the fretboard and a small one on the neck

- The pickup screws are at weird angles making it extremely difficult to adjust pickup height (a common issue with HBs in my experience)

If it was any one of these points alone I would have kept it. But all three was just too much for a "deluxe" bass. Seems QC is worse then on my "standard" PB-20 (and the MB costs around 40% more). I was a bit sorry as the tone and playability are pretty good.

In your face Bass

Let's start with the cosmetics... It arrived looking absolutely perfect, just a beautiful and sleek instrument. The fret job is perfect, all frets had a mirror shine. The action needed lowered just a tad, it was around 2.4mm and I like mine around 2mm, a small amount but us musicians are a picky bunch.

The sound of this bass is beautiful, so full and round without being muddy, it doesn't have a huge range in tone but what it does do, it does exceptionally well. It's worth a lot more than it's asking price in my opinion... Buy it NOW!

Best value for money going.

I bought this due to wanting a stingray-style bass for a few years now, but not having the money to be able to splash out on an expensive ray34 or some other options, and I'd heard good things about Harley Benton basses.

What I'd heard was not wrong.

This bass is very well made, frets are nice and smooth, everything feels solid. The action out of the box was rather high but a few adjustments made it a dream to play.

The tuners hold tune very well, the feel of the bass is excellent and personally the visuals are fantastic.

The sound is very stingray-esque, great for funk and slap. I can't detect any hum or buzzing when playing through headphones/an amp.

The only negative is that the tone knob is rather sensitive and uneven as you turn the tone down.

The fact that this bass is £107, and being the quality that it is, is ridiculously good.

I would've killed for a bass like this when I was first learning to play.

Highly recommended.