Harley Benton MultiScale-8 QBB 4-stars Reviews

Great first 8 string

So I went out on a limb and tried this 8 string based on some internet reviews I had seen. I do enjoy the guitar there is no doubt about that; However, it has some issues.

1st The nut on the high side was very sharp when it arrived and uncomfortable to play. Nothing a file didn't fix but annoying nonetheless.

2nd There are some minor high spots in the finish on the back of the neck that are noticeable but don't really effect playing.

3rd Some minor tooling marks are visible on the fretboard but nothing I can feel while playing.

4th When restringing I had 6 out of the 8 Ferrules fall out and I had to glue them back in to hold them in place. This definitely shouldn't have happened, luckily I was able to remedy this.

Final thoughts are this is a Great first 8 string. It's absolutely a fine instrument to try out extended range and experiment with new style for a very tempting price. Please expect some minor issues and have that within your expectations and you should be very happy.

Just what you'd expect.

Overall for this price, you're getting a pretty good deal for an 8 string. The pickups are decent, a little bass heavy but not as bad as other $300 guitar pickups. The construction is nice and the guitar looks amazing.

However there are some obvious issues which isn't too surprising.

The nut slots are cut very thin, I put a pack of 11-80 DR strings on and about only two of them actually fit in the nut slots, the rest just sit on top of the nut. Which leads to strings going out of tune and fret buzz. Also the bottom corner of the nut by the e string was very sharp, I had to file it down, because it was so bad.

Almost all of the frets past the 12th need to be polished, they are very rough, although, at least there were no pointy fret ends.

The pegs that hold the strings in the back of the guitar aren't held stationary, they fall out when removing the string.

The neck is also very heavy. It's not THAT bad, but the body is extremely light which makes it somewhat unbalanced. Personally I'd take the whole guitar being heavier if it meant there was no neck dive.

But other than that, this is a very nice guitar for getting started on, or learning about 8 strings. I'd definitely recommend it, but just remember you might have to put in a little extra cash or work to fix up some things.

For the price, an absolute steal

I ordered with a good bit of skepticism to be quite honest, I was very pleasantly surprised with the overall quality. Only complaint is with the pickups, it doesn't seem to matter what I do, I cannot seem to get a good sound out of the low F# string. Its a bit muddy but definitely not what I would call unsalvageable. For the price, it is a wonderful instrument and I will be acquiring another Harley Benton in the future