Harley Benton MM-85A SB Deluxe Series

A bang for your buck…if you know what to expect

This is truly an awesome bass, 24 frets, awesome sound, gives me music man vibes, however one thing to point out is the giant pickups, the neck pick-up is raised too high and in doing so makes slapping quite difficult, however fingerpicking is amazing

Brutal!!! Super recomendado!!

Llevo año y medio con éste bajo y recientemente lo he utilizado para tocar en algunos bares con capacidad de 200 personas aprox y el sonido que tiene es increíble, yo toco en una banda que se llama Tridente Moto Rock en Playa del Carmen, Mexico. Tocamos éste genero que es un tipo Rock & Roll a veces tirandole un poco a trash metal sin llegar tan lejos solo somos 3, bateria, guitarra y bajo. Los PROS: Las pastillas son bastante buenas y tienen bastante ganancia, capturan bien el sonido y se escucha claramente todo lo que hago al tocar. La electrónica no está nada mal, el Eq sirve bastante bien y la palanca de 5 pocisiones también te da varias posibilidades de sonidos distintos, se puede jugar mucho con eso, aunque yo lo uso en posicion media, es el sonido que mas me gusta. El slap suena brutal! Es lo que mas me encanta del baio ya que en varias canciones solo hago slap. Los acabados y la construccion del bajo es de bastante calidad, se siente como un bajo mucho más caro. Las cuerdas que trae de fabrica están geniales, no se las he tenido que cambiar desde que llegó y siguen sonando increible. CONTRAS: Tiene mucho Neck Dive, es un bajo que no esta balanceado por lo que el brazo se va mucho hacia abajo, lo solucioné recorriendo aprox 18cm hacia arriba el boton de correa donde se pone el tahali y me compré un tahali que fuera de cuero o piel rasposo por la parye interna para que se atore con mi player y ya no se deslice hacia abajo, solo asi logre quitar el neck dive ya que era mucho. El jack de entrada es de baja calidad, tuve que cambiarselo por un neutrik con seguro y quedo perfecto. Este bajo es muy dificil de tocar slap si estas acostumbrado a slapear en la parte donde empieza el brazo ya que la pastilla esta bien pegada al cuello y no deja espacio para jalar la cuerda. Lo que hice fue comenzar a hacer los golpes del pulgar sobre la pastilla del cuello y jalar en el hueco entre las 2 pastillas, y aunque no es tan como al principio pues ya me acostumbré, pero si lo tuyo es hacer muchas tecnicas de slap te recomiendo mas el de una sola pastilla que si te deje espacio para todo porque hay varias tecnicas que se dificultan con este. Y por último pues aunque yo la verdad no uso mucho los trastes arriba del 18, el acceso a los trastes 21 al 24 es horrible, muy dificil, habria que rebanar la madera de ahi para dejar acceso a meter la mano, aunque a mi no me afecta mucho porque no uso esos trastes, pero es algo a considerar. En conclusión. Para mí es un bajo increíble, que me resulta impresionante por lo barato que es y a veces me causa conflicto que una marca tan barata suene tan bien pero es por ahora mi bajo principal y lo seguirá siendo mientras no encuentre algo mejor. Sigueme en redes como Rob Galgar y Tridente Motor Rock

The GOAT of Alternate Stingray’s

Hands down, the best Stingray clone I have ever played. This is my go to bass for every gig. Headstock is a bit heavy but a quality strap fixes that issue. Great tones and growl out of this beast. Thank You HB

Harley Benton MM-85A SB Deluxe Series

Hello everyone) This is a new experience for me, to take a 5 string bass in my hands and.. what can I tell you, I am very pleased. The instrument fits well in the hands, is pleasant to the touch, and produces a beautiful, voluminous, clear sound. If you are still thinking, I can tell you, take it, you won’t regret it)

Very nice neck, pretty good fretwork. Pickups are nice. The bridge and tuners are pretty cheap, but doing its job well. Finish is good.

Cons: I had to repair electronics just after getting the parcell. It simply didn't worked. Gladly I was able to fix it. It was just a bad conact on the volume pot.

Three stars for the quality because I think these beautiful instruments deserve to be assembled more accurate. Seems like the pickguard was installed in a big hurry. I redrilled holes to place it symmetricaly.

Not a big deal so I decided to keep it. And overall it is nice and a pleasure to play for me.

Amazing

After an initial setup, this is a beautiful bass. Its sounds great, the active pickups help to sculpt the perfect sound, and it plays really well.

It is my first 5 (had many 4s) string bass, and to be fair, I probably wont need another.

After some initial issues

This bass is awesome I will pick before some extremely more expensive basses I love it so far with new strings and a minor setup everyone loves the sound. I get so many compliments

HB MM85A Deluxes series

It's an awesome 5 strings bass guitar & reasonable price. Highly recommended

Does a little more than the price entitles

The built is poor quality: you can feel the fret edges over the neck, the neck isn't fast, it picks radio signal, it isn't hybrid passive which could have been nice as it eats up battery faster than expected. To compensate for the extended neck, they had to pull up the bridge closer to the pickups which is ok and finally, the neck pick up is placed where most of us would slap and so either you screw it in, either you adjust your technic.

The good :

- the 5 position switch really gives you 5 different basses sound, including jazz bass type and sort of MusicMan type it's really great to play with

- The sound is GREAT, punchy, maybe a little too much plain as in less less subtle tone as in a fender or a real MM, but with new strings slapped to it, it's amazing. I had friends try it at a jam, they bought theirs a week after. I do compensate with a EQ pedal or VTF of my Mark Bass amp

- Almost a year onward, it seems to hold on despite the cheaper quality of wood and mechanics

All in all, great bass to begin with, experiment on. I'll bring it to my luthier friend so he can maybe screw the soap further in to let me slap and fix the radio interferences

Sounds great!

It sounds fantastic however when I played on the lower frets there was a ton of fret buzz on all the strings about from the first second and third fret but it’s nothing a little adjusting can’t fix but other than that it’s a very nice playing and sounding bass