Harley Benton ST-Junior BK Standard Series Reviews

Not bad at all

This guitar has been in my house for 5 years now and survived all the abuse two little boys can do to it.

It's actually quite playable (even for an adult) and sounds surprisingly good. Only problem is tuning it. First I always forget what key its supposed to be tuned to and second there is no guitar tuner (to my knowledge) that can be set to "light up green" on anything other than E. So I just tune it by ear and avoid jamming with the kids at all cost.

Ridiculous for the price

I bought this guitar to play a fourth higher to complement regular guitar. So far it seems great and I can definitely not complain for the price. If you're looking for a cheap instrument to expand your sound you can't really miss with this. The quality of some of the parts is so-so but nothing that's not upgradeable.

I'd definitely recommend keeping the tuning of this instrument between G-G or A-A as the short scale doesn't make it really possible to play in standard tuning, but that's not why I bought the instrument.

The quality of this instrument has definitely got me interested in trying more Harley Benton instruments.

Its just impossible to tune

I am not able to get 5th and 6th in tune. It was easy at my other guitars

Perfect for kids

At first, I was a bit disapointed with this guitar. It came with 9/42 strings, and out of tune. All my efforts to tune guitar properly has failed. Main reason are strings. When I mounted Dunlop 12/53 strings, I menage to tune guitar perfectly (EADGBe) and guitar stays in tune for a long time. My kids are very hapy with guitar, and I may say that it sound very good.

nice little piece of equipment

I made mine into a electric ukulele. And it sounds great!

Good value for a tiny guitar

I enjoy playing and modifying small electric guitars, and the Harley Benton ST Junior looked like a good candidate with an even better price. It took less than 10 days to arrive at my door here in Los Angeles, California. My first impression out of the box is quite favorable. Playability, sound and overall quality is good. The design seems to have changed a bit from the photos on the web site. It's no longer "top loading" string bridge, but rather a string-through-body design, similar to a Telecaster. I can verify a previous reviewer: the body does have a "swimming pool" route under the pickguard that will accommodate any style and configuration of pickups if one is so inclined. I already modified the wiring to the "Dan Armstrong Blender" circuit, and changed the strings to heavy gauge in order to accommodate normal EADGBE tuning. This requires setting the saddles for intonation, and some filing of the nut slots for thicker strings. On the "con" side, The frets are slightly sharp on the ends, though not too bad. Also, when changing the strings, I found the string ferrules in the rear are not tightly fit in the body at all. They fall out when there is no string to hold them in! Be warned until they fix this flaw! The bridge still has the top loading holes if one wishes to use them instead. All in all, I think this instrument offers a good value for someone wanting the novelty of a tiny electric guitar and works reasonably well with its intended tuning right out of the box. Not only do I recommend, but I'm thinking of buying another already.

Little beauty but change the strings!

Out of the box all very well packed in bubblewrap etc. Very nice finish. Intonation was very bad, hopelessly out of tune on 5th fret and sound pretty yuk. Changed the strings to my favourite ones (electric guitar 0.010 top) and hey-presto - as near perfect as I can tell! Lovely bright sound well balanced across all 6 strings with no need to adjust pups height. I lowered the action by one turn per string at bridge/saddle (my personal preference for action) and gave a small tweak on bridge intonation screws - got the octave perfect and string to string at 5th fret, well as near as I can hear. Don't touch the truss rod - looks properly set for fret board bow. I play through a Fender 25 bass amp (10 inch) to get nice sound. Don't expect same through cheap battery amp with 3 inch speaker, I've tried. I'm talking proper clean tones here, much more demanding than distorted. Tuned to A low i.e. same as normal guitar with capo on 5th fret, hence just use normal guitar strings. The 5 position switch works as standard strat with positions 2 and 4 giving some of that fender twang and also hum cancelling, so I assume the middle pup is reverse wound/polarity as it should be. One result of small size is that pups are close together so not so much differentiation of tone /sound as on a full size. Came with free jack lead. Just remember that like any (single coil) guitar the pick up height affects the tone, I prefer my pickups very low for a more mellow tone.

I bought this mainly to play melody lines of English ceilidh and folk music because the range of first finger position from low A to high C# matches most of all published music books in that genre. Hence wanting clean sound. I love it, it's great fun and nicely satisfying for melody lines. Chords sound fine as well to me, but being short scale you have to set your tuning accurately with a proper tuner. And for the price its amazing, and fine for me, then again - I'm not a pro. I don't see this as just a child's instrument. My star ratings apply after string change.

Money worth

Bought this guitar for practicing when on the road and it does the job well.

Build quality is good and sound aswell.

Recommend it.

Nice and cheap

I bought this guitar for my son and I confess that I had some doubts regarding the quality and sound it had, but it was a pleasant surprise

The size makes it easier for my son to play and the sound and quality of the material is quite reasonable considering the value of it, does what it is proposed to do.

The order arrived fast and very well packaged and everything is fine inside.

Comes with connecting cable to the amplifier that do the work

I will definitely recommend this guitar to all my friends who want to offer their children a good first guitar to start in the world of music.

Junior strat

My son loves it! He really thinks he's Eddie Van Halen when he has it in his hands.

For the price, this is a great guitar. Small enough for a young child to hold, and the components are well placed - not too high quality, yet high enough quality for the purpose.

Recommended!

Fantastic little guitar

I was amazed of the quality of this little guitar. I can't find anything to blame on it.

I sold it now( I have too many guitars) and the buyer is using it for his car/summerhouse guitar.

Ideal travel guitar

I bought this as I was working away from home and wanted a guitar I could put in my luggage and this along with an Orange Micro crush filled that role nicely. good sound and playability the tuners are basic but solid holds its tune perfectly. the fit and finish are well above the price point.

since returning home I've messed around with its use a bit by an octave up G string turning it into a 6 string electric ukulele and this has only added to the fun you can have with this little guitar highly recommended.

Great starter guitar

I bought this guitar for my 8 year old son and he loves it. As it is a small guitar it fits perfectly onto his lap and isn't too heavy for his to hold with the elbow whilst playing. The guitar came fully set up and a quick tune and it was ready to play. The only negative is that this guitar is tuned to A, rather than the standard E tuning, this could be because the strings that are supplied with this guitar appear to be 10's and tuning to E might put to much pressure on the neck - when the strings are due a change, I might put on a set of 9's and try a E tuning.

The guitar fret work is smooth and no fret ends to catch your hand whilst playing. The neck is quite wide, not too wide for a child's hand. With the cut away body it is possible to get right up to the 21st fret.

Hardware consists of three single coil pickups which are bright and sharp sounding. A 5-way switch for the pickups, a volume and tone pots, all which do exactly as they were designed to do.

Sound wise: as I said the pick ups are bright and sharp sounding, I am used to humbuckers and thought these might be a bit too harsh for my ears but roll of the tone pot and it has a pleasant sound which is quite warm. It does take a bit of used to hearing a guitar in A tuning, so playing along to songs following a tab might prove a bit difficult as you will be in the wrong key, but again this is a minor issue.

A good starter guitar for children.

Good choice for the young ones

This was bought for my six year old, pretty decent in quality and sound but keeping in tune is tough, as to be expected.

A bit disappointing

Having purchased a number of Harley Benton guitars and been generally blown away by the quality at their price-point, I was hopeful of another success with this junior guitar I bought for my son. However, I was a little let down by this purchase. The guitar looks good & is well finished but was noticeably detuning during chord changes. Therefore, it required significant changes to its setup in order for it to play correctly, unlike the other models I have purchased (I'm a pretty casual/forgiving player & generally I am very satisfied with how these play out-of-the-box). It plays ok now with the changes, but in hindsight, I probably wished I'd spent a little more on a full-sized HB that he could grow into.

Pros: looks nice

Cons: poor setup out-of-the-box

For the money, I don't think anything else comes close.

Bought this for my 4 year old (to stop him messing with mine). The finish has no faults, pretty much everything is adjustable like it's big brother, Mini Squier Strats are twice the price and I do not think twice the quality based on the standard of this product. Nice selection of tones from the selector switch, smooth pots, not too heavy on a strap for the little guy, all in all a very nice product.

I have played it myself (albeit struggling with the tiny fretboard) though a tiny practice amp and also though something 'a bit louder' and I am happy with the sounds it makes.

Really it is hard to find faults when putting into perspective, this is a very low price guitar for the quality you get. This will be a child's first electric guitar and should keep them going for years and I highly recommend it.

I bought it with the short scale gig bag which fits it very well.

Brilliant for the money

Bought for my two boys, 9 and 6. They love it and learning nicely with it. Would recommend.

Nice first guitar for children

Got one for my 7-year old kid and was positively surprised. This one plays pretty nicely, stays in tune and even intonices (is that an english word) decently. A good entry level kids' guitar and a possible choise for a grown ups' travel guitar as this really does not need a lot of space.

Needed a few tweaks

All in all the guitar is quite nice and sounds ok. It's a good size for kids who wish to play electric guitar.

A few (minor, for me at least) things needed a tweak before it was playable and could be tuned correctly.

A stray ground wire shorted the volume pot, silencing the guitar. A quick re-soldering fixed that.

Also the springs in the bridge needed to be shortened for some of the strings to be intonated correctly.

Actually not at all unhappy with the product, especially when the price is taken into consideration. But compared to other Harley Benton products I've tried this was a tad under par.

simple and enjoyable

I bought this little sweet thing as a present for my son for his birthday. It is well built and sounds good. Even an adult can use it for practise. Great!