Harley Benton PB-50 SB Vintage Series 4-stars Reviews

One decent e-bass

Honest, responding fully to its price, its an overall good e-bass!!

After 6 months of playing, the bass knobs and electronics work smoothly and nice without noise signs.

Sound wise, a huge positive change came when I changed the first given strings.

Recommended choice for a beginner - intermediate player.

Very Good Bass

The finish of this bass is fantastic. The tuners feel solid, the neck is chunky. The Roswell pickup is hot and has a nice, deep sound. The fretwork is very good, there are only a couple of frets that feel a little sharp. The only reason I don't give it 5 stars is that the pots are audio pots and not linear pots. The volume goes from 0-100% from turning the pot only 1/3 of the way and then it doesn't get any louder. The tone pot has only a little effect on the tone. But for a $110 bass that feels as good as an $800 bass, I don't mind spending the extra $15 to change the pots.

my uncle has the real thing from the 50's, so i had the chance to compare them. as one would expect, there is a difference in sound. but consider the original p-bass costs several thousand euros, the Harley Benton PB-50 SB a little sharp of 100 quid. bully!

Great bass for the money...seriously. Don't wait until they decide to raise the price ! lol

(UPDATE 07/01/2018): Today, I brought the bass out to play at our church and I found that the bottom strap button had suffered an impact, strong enough that it was crushed *into the body*. At first I thought it came loose, but it was then I realized that there was damage during shipping. It's not the end of the world and I can do something about this, but be aware that carriers can be less than careful and this could be the result of that. One other thing, the bass is headstock heavy. When it was strapped on and left for gravity to do its thing, the headstock dropped to level with the body. No big deal and it's probably because of the beefy neck. In the end, I would still buy this bass and recommend it to everyone)

I bought this as a test subject for my pickup company (Shoreline Pickups), so I knew I would be replacing the pickup and probably the electronics as well. But I'll tell you, this instrument, shipped to New Jersey from Germany, was 96% in tune when it arrived and in very good shape. It as carefully packaged and protected. It took 20 days from the day I ordered it until it was received because I ordered it a Friday afternoon, and because of the Christmas and New Years Day holidays and there blizzard conditions here in NJ on the day it arrived to my house !

The instrument needed a proper set up (expected) which included the nut grooves being cut deeper, setting its intonation, its string height but nothing else.

If you have the tools to do this, you'll have the BEST DEAL ever. The bass sounds perfectly fine with the Roswell pickup.

Minor details... some of the tuner bushings on my bass need to be pressed to sit flush against the headstock. The E string tuner mounting plate needs to be screwed down properly as it's not flush against the headstock, but like I said, this is minor, the bass tunes and plays fine as-is. The tone pot is scratchy when sweeping it from 10 to 0 and back to 10. I'll take care of all of that later on.

Conclusion: I've got two more Harley Benton basses in my wish list ! Soon as I can get them, I WILL !! ...and you should too ! You will love them. It's the best deal for the money I've seen.

One of the best basses "value for the money"

Nice Bass

Strings were slightly misaligned. But I can live with it for the price. Everything else above expectation.

Great deal

For the price, this bass is a great deal! Comes with a perfect setup, straight neck and fine action. Wilkinson pickup does a great job. A fine workhorse for cheap!

Surprisingly good!!

Overall, very impressed for the money.

The body is very good, nice feel and finish, some nice grain coming through, all of the hardware is relatively neat and wobble free. Controls are solid and work well, if a little "on/off", but I'm not surprised and didn't think these would be much good anyway. The pickguard is a bit roughly cut, but again nothing too bad and this may or may not end up going. The bridge and tuners are surprisingly quite good for the price, and I thought these would be essentially useless and clearly where money had been saved.

The most interesting thing about this bass is the fact that it's a Wilkinson pickup. Soundwise it does what it's meant to do. Not the most characterful pickup, does solid rock/pop and quite good for funk sounds. Bassier than I thought it would be, but definitely happiest with lower mids. Great build quality,good range of sounds,well balanced,quick easy set-up and we were good to go.This comes with D'ddario strings and a thumb rest so you can pluck with your thumb.

The bottom line is this:If you like Fender P bass's you will like the PB-50.

For it`s price I `d recommend this bass to anyone.Fantastic value.

Good starter bass

Very good starter bass. Generally well finished minor cosmetic mark around pickup hole and slight lack of Finnish at top of neck. Holds tune well. Not as full a range of tones as other basses I've owned but for the price you can't argue. Well packed and delivered pretty quickly.

I bought this bass a few months back mostly as an impulse purchase. Considering the price the quality of this instrument is unbelievable. Looks incredible, solid sounding and feels amazing to play!

Pros:

-Amazing sound for the price.

-Nice Precision style neck, not too thick or thin.

Cons:

-Minor issues with tuning pegs (easily fixed).

-Cheaply made scratch plate (easily replaced).

This bass is now being primarily used as my secondary/drop-D bass right beside my Fender Precision (and it holds up quite well in comparison to the Fender :) )

I highly recommend this bass, for beginners and professionals!

Good at a good price

I bought this with the intention of using it for Rocksmith 2014. I have no experience of bass guitars from before, so I might not be the best person to give my opinions of it.

First of all, I think it looks and feels more expensive than it is. It feels quite heavy and sturdy. I haven't found anything wrong with the build quality or the intonation.

There was, and still is, quite a lot of debris (from packaging, I think) stuck between the body and the surface that is screwed on top of the body which will take some cleaning to get rid off. It doesn't bother me though.

Using it with Rocksmith 2014, I was first a bit disheartened because the game wouldn't recognize that anything was plugged in, even at the highest volume settings on the bass. I was however able to get it to pick up the bass by going into the settings (the RealTone cable acts as a microphone) and turning up the volume from around 17 to 40-50 (more than 50 and it will have too much noise). This process has to be repeated each time I start the game, and it has never been an issue with my Les Paul Jr. so I don't know why it is like that. After that however, it works in the game just fine.

I went for this bass after seeing the positive reviews. I?ve previously gravitated towards traditional post ?58 style split coil P-basses, and wanted to try a ?51 style layout without spending shedloads and to be honest, I?d never really seen an attractive budget version that I was happy with.

First impressions out of the box were very good. Firstly, it was packaged very well and there weren?t marks on it. As a general summary, the bass exceeds expectations, and anything that is a bit rough is more than excusable given the price.

Fit and finish - The body has some nice grain showing through and the finish is even and very nice, far better than the price suggests it will be. The pickguard is a little roughly cut, but for the price, not really an issue. The control panel is nice and neat, and all screws and so on around the body are neat and there are no rough or snagging edges. Controls were solid with no movement. The neck has a smooth satin finish and sits well in the hand with a nice C-shape. The 2 piece maple neck I had had a slight colour difference between the two woods, which aesthetically was a little noticeable at first, but again for the price, really not an issue. The frets were actually finished quite well, no sharp ends and although one or two of the frets might be a tiny bit higher than others, it?s really only noticeable with a very, very low action, and as good as I?d expect from even more expensive basses. The biggest surprise for me was the quality of the bridge and tuners. I expected them to feel awful and on par with squire affinity hardware I?d had before, but they are actually far sturdier than I imagined and hold tune and intonation well. I had originally planned to remove these straight away, but will now keep them until they begin to show any signs of problems, which may be a while. Yes, it needed a set-up out of the box, but so does any new guitar or bass you buy online, so again, really not an issue.

Sound ? Overall, it?s what I expected. The body and fit give the whole bass some nice resonance and warmth. The pickup covers standard rock from 60?s to modern very well, and is far bassier than I expected. If you play around with the EQ you can get a bit of mid range rauch from it, and the highs are clear and not too trebly. It lacks the character and punch of a split coil P bass pickup, but that?s the design. Rolling off the tone and volume can give you some softer/pop tones, but again slightly lacking in character. The tone control is a little ?on-off? but not a surprise for the price. With a pick and the tone rolled up, it gives a very solid punk bass sound, and probably it?s best sound actually. Funk however, it doesn?t really cover. Overall it?s a good solid pickup, if a little lacking in character (but what do you expect for the price?) that can handle a good range of sound styles, being particularly suited to punk or rock.

Really good value Bass Guitar

I was looking for a cheap but good bass guitar to start me off playing and I believe this one is perfect for the job. Brilliant for beginners this Bass sounds good and feels nice. The cable it comes shipped with is of decent quality and is still working nicely for me after a good few months of playing.

The Bottom E string does rattle a little against the fret board but this can be easily fixed by taking it to any guitar/bass shop and getting it set up and serviced.

After the service this bass sounds even more wonderful.

Really happy with the purchase, was boxed up well and sent out promptly.

Solid and great value

Bought as a cheap second bass but has very quickly become my favourite. Fabulous tone, great action and extraordinary value!

Great value and quality

I got this bass in record breaking time and I was extremely amazed by the quality of the bass I think it is put together well and set up really good from the box with only a minor couple of tweaks needed.

Has good hardware and a nice vintage sound well worth the money :)

Great Bass - OK Pickups

The build quality is great on this guitar, tuners are fine, the nut was cut perfectly (which is rare on guitars at this price range) and the strings were great (d'addario nickel wound).

My only complaint was the guitar needed to be set up, meaning you have to spend about 30 minutes adjusting the pickup height, truss rod, intonation and string height. Beginners might struggle with this so it is important to watch some youtube videos about setting up a guitar or get a friend to do it for you.

The pickups were ok -- on par with the Mexican Fender P-bass pickups -- very warm and vintage sounding.