Harley Benton PJ-74 VW Vintage Series 5-stars Reviews

Totally Outstanding Bass

This is an unbelievable Bass for the money, superior craftmanship all around and great sound and tone, you can't go wrong with the PJ74!!

What more could you want?

Bass sounds great, plays great, and feels great. For the price, I have no regrets and am super happy with what I got! Setup took barely any work, slight truss rod adjustment and then lowered the action and it is a joy to play now! I don't love the bridge jazz pickup but I think I am more of a P bass person anyways, I look forward to blending a bit of the bridge pickup in to see if it grows on me.

Excellent bass for its price. Nice recording sound and feel.

Can't believe it's not a fender

Bought this bass from you about half a year ago, and as time passes I'm falling in love with it more and more. That creamy white colour is deep and beautiful, The sound is just like I've always dreamed of, that round, metallic P bass sound (with an extra option for a J bass sound, also!), I've found myself playing along with records featuring a P bass in them and sounded 100% spot on. And the build quality! Like really this is so phenomenal, one of the best I've seen on an instrument generally and especially for a HB one, and considering the price...I felt like the luckiest person when I received that bass first. Lately I've set it up with new strings and my technician (who also owns a HB bass haha) told me he was really blown away by how little he had to do for it to be ready. This is really an unbelievable instrument.

Great Bass for the price

Bought this Bass for my home studio and couldn't be happier. It plays and sounds great and looks beautiful in the cream color.

Great Bass for the buck

Great instrument for the price. It's about the same price as the cheapest Squires, but the quality of the PJ-74 is superior to the Squire. The neck and frets was 99% when I got the bass, and it only took a couple of minutes to file the few frets with sharp edges. The neck was 100% strait out of the box.

Sound is ok stock, but came to life with a set of Quarter Pound from Seymour Duncan.

With the original pickups there was a lot of hum, due to lack of shielding in the body. Quick fix with some copper tape.

Finish of body and neck is super nice.

There's a couple of minor issues :

The tuners is not very good, and will be changed in the future.

It stays in tune when tuned, but it's hard to setup because of the lack of precision of the tuners.

The nut was very ruff cut, and made of soft plastic. Already got a replacement from Graph Tech on my bench.

The neck isn't balanced to the body, and there's a good neck dive.

All in all ,I'm very pleased with this instrument, and it's now my most used bass.

Overall, an amazing instrument, well worth the money. UPDATE.

Ok, it's not a vintage Fender Precision but for the money, this bass is certainly pretty close. I bought this model on reviews I found online, with a view to modifying it.

Certainly, the tuners are not brilliant and the electronics could benefit from shielding - some copper tape will sort this out. The pickups are fine to be getting on with especially the split pickup - very gutsy. For that matter, the single coil bridge pickup is no more noisy than a Fender counterpart; single coils are noisy unless they're hum-cancelling - but, you knew that especially if you've ever owned a 'jazz' bass.

The fret job on this particular instrument is again 'ok' but there are one or two rough fret ends that slipped through QC - but, nothing that a once-over with a fret file won't sort out. I had to set the bass up - a small turn of the truss rod and adjustment on the bridge for string height - done.

The general quality of the bass is great and it 'feels' like a pricier instrument. I had returned an HB JB75 because at around 5kg, it was just too heavy although again, a superb instrument and cheaper than the one I'm reviewing. In an ideal world, I would swap the neck as I really loved the profile of the JB75's, however, this instrument has a great neck too, but the profile is obviously, 'Precision' spec. It still plays like a dream after my set up. Who knows, it may be on the mod list later on. For now, it's really the tuners that I intend to replace with Wilkinson's - cheap and efficient. I'm happy with the stock Roswell pickups - they do the job and the bass sounds great recorded.

The neck pocket is really tight and aesthetically, the bass looks great with the cream finish (off white) and red tort scratchplate - classic combination. Again, in an ideal world, I'd love this bass in fiesta red who knows, another mod?

I can't say I'm too impressed with the D'Addario EXL .045 - .100 roundwound string set either and to be honest, with the amount of grime on my fingers, I'm not entirely convinced that they're genuine but again - the strings will be replaced with ones I like.

In conclusion, the main thing here is value for money and a really useable instrument that I would happily gig. I'm not even going to hide the name on the headstock; Harley Benton are making some very good basses at least, this one and the JB75 NA, that I've played.

UPDATE - I ditched the Roswell pickups in the end and replace the neck p/up with one taken from my 90's MIJ Fender Precision and the bridge p/up from my Squier Jazz - what a difference! The original Roswell p/ups were fine but now the bass sounds even better! I also replaced the strings with some unidentified round wounds I had lying around as I wasn't keen on the D'Addario's this bass came with. I also replaced the plastic nut with a bone one and oiled the fretboard with linseed oil. Now it even smells like a much more expensive instrument (plays and sounds like one too)! I have still to replace the tuners and will probably use lightweight ones rather than the Wilkinson's I intended maybe Hipshot or similar.

From an experienced bass player

Uses:

Recording

Gigging (once Covid restrictions allow)

It's very, very, very good value for the price. You can gig with it.

Pros:

price (obviously)

looks

sound

weight

surprisingly good hardware and electronics

Cons:

The action was a tad high, but easily fixed.

I've been playing bass for over a decade and I've gigged a lot. I would absolutely gig with this bass. Harley Benton has made a good one with this PJ-74. I like the sound of the P and J pickups. The J is a bit faint, but an amp adjustment fixes that right up. The bass is lighter than I expected. Huge plus! The neck and fretboard feel solid and well made. No rough fret ends. The tuners are quite nice and cooperative. The only thing I would consider changing are the pickups, but even then... do I need to? I like how these Roswell pickups sound. Maybe I'll change them for fun in the future, but I am I'm happy with them now. For years, only certain brands of basses could turn my head. I'm glad I came across this PJ-74. I can't stop playing this thing. I'm very happy with it!

good value for that price

Great bass, balanced tone, records well

This bass has a solid, well-balanced tone across its whole range. Sits perfectly in the mix. Really hard to complain at this price, just as usual with any PJ bass the bridge pickup has less output than the P pickup. And the radius is flat for my tastes. I liked the bass so much that I paid more than it's cost for a slightly narrower replacement neck with a more curved radius & now have a real keeper !

Just great bass guitar!

I would sincerely recommend this guitar to anyone looking for low budget bass.

Beautiful and simple design.

Guitar playable out of the box.

There are no sharp edges on freats , no defects in the paint,...

Can produce a lot different sounds, from tight low end to trebbly sound.

My only criticism would be that it would be good to upgrade the guitar by deepening the bridge pickup slot so you can lower the action, because if you want to go lower now you can’t because of that pickup, and it’s a bit sharp if you play aggressively.

Similar to the Squier bass guitar.

Fully satisfied - excellent value

I've been a (bad :) ) guitarist for the past 15 years and always felt tempted to start learning a bass guitar. My plan was to use this bass mainly for home practising and experimenting with the bass or maybe smallish jam session with friends or in the pub.

I did quite a lot of research - my top priority was playability over looks. This was my pick based on the reviews here and some youtube videos as all of them claim very good value for the money (so my expectation was quite high).

The bass arrived in good packaging and out of the box it looked very well. The finish is very good for the money. Nice color of the body and matching headstock, neck with a great wood texture and satin finish. The frets are nicely done and there are no sharp edges. There are small flaws around the truss rod hole and the place where the neck joins the body. The pickguard has some very small flaws around the edges. It is covered with a thin film, which can be removed and the looks and feel of it will greatly improve. All in all I am just nitpicking here - the finish is really good and I wouldn't be bothered by it for instruments costing twice the money of this one.

From playability perspective the bass is amazing and very well setup out of the box. Bass arrived almost in tune. The intonation (through saddles on the bridge) is well setup and the intonation across the fretboard is good (checked with a tuner), the neck is straight. The same applies to the action (though I adjusted it to my taste). The bridge, nut and tuners feel cheap (you can actually find them to be low cost parts on aliexpress), but do their job. I had some issues with rattles in the bridge, but that got resolved by playing with it a bit. The pickups work fine and give a nice tone (nothing really fancy, but works well). Again, amazing value for the money - the bass is perfectly playable.

All in all I am very satisfied and happy with this purchase - I've been playing the bass every day for the past month and I am still enjoying it (and haven't found any more serious flaws yet). Just like the others I don't understand what kind of magic HB does in order to deliver that good bass for the money.

Exceptional

I bought one of these as a stop gap and it was exceptional. Well built and with great tone. Obviously a little cheaply made but for the money - fantastic!

Awesome Inexpensive PJ Bass

Received in overall good shape with finish rubs on neck headstock sides. Plays and sounds great after setup to my tuff standards. TY

Looks, feels and plays very nicely for under $200 USD

I am an amateur guitarist and only previously owned a short-scale Squire bass. The HB PJ-74 VW is my first full scale bass and it feels powerful, sexy and fun to hold and to play.

I ordered the bass (and a guitar) on a Saturday in NYC, USA and received my bass and an HB DC Custom Cherry guitar four days later(!).

I have already stressed by fretboard hand from playing the bass so much in the last 36-hours since receiving it. The bass is large, but it feels surprising light.

Although I have not visually inspected the electronics, the sound of the Roswell pickups are more sonically pleasing than the Squire factory pickups, from my previous bass. The pinus radiata fretboard looks and feels like dark rosewood. The African alder body is light and the back of the neck has a satin smooth finish.

Awesome PJ bass

Just got this bass.

1)Straight neck from the box, but the string height must be set up.

2)Frets are fantastic.

3)Parallel pickups sound quit together,wish it was serial.

Overall it's much better than Squier CV and VM.

The only cons - the headstock was damaged during the transportation to Russia due to very poor packaging for international shipping.It would be nice to get a coupon equal to the price of repair.

Awesome Vintage p bass

This is such a good bass for the money, the sound is as good as, if not louder than my fender p. I would recommend easily this bass for value, sound, and build quality. You get so much for your money. Only negative is that the pickgaurd is a bit horrible but for a few pounds can be changed and you have a stunning bass.

Wow.

To get a bass this good, you'd usually have to spend about £350+. I love it, it look greats, sounds great and it's going to stay with me for a long time.

Nice bass.

I own this bass for a half a year and still happy with that.

Bass-guitar feels very comfortable and looks gorgeous. Neck is well-made and straight, so intonations are correct. It sounds as you would expect from PJ-bass. It lays in a mix perfectly.

I had the only minor problem with frets. After the winter in the dry room, the frets appeared at the top positions. I fixed it with a file. So it doesn't affect on instruments' function.

Excellent guitar for the price

Bought this a couple of months ago and have now got a good feel for it. Wow, what a deal for under $150USD! Finish is flawless and gorgeous as well. Changed strings after about a week (I like flat wounds) and lowered the action a bit to my liking. Did need to touch up the fret ends as they were just a little rough. After that, its been smooth sailing. Playing this thru a Fender Rumble 500 and it sounds great for the types of playing I do. Rock, blues, some country. I've got two guitars from HB now and both are more that I expected for the money!