Harley Benton R-457BK Fanfret

The scale came a little bent, but I'm Luther so I fixed it, the hardware such as tuners and bridge are of poor quality.

The best seven-string option in the low price segment

The guitar did not arrive in the best condition: all covered in dust, there were noticeable drops of glue on the bridge (probably) but were easily cleaned with a cotton swab and water, the body had faintly visible very small scratches; the strings were in a very strange tuning, unlike an out-of-tune guitar, but as if it had not been tuned at all.

The guitar itself is quite weighty, but relatively light compared to other seven-strings; both pickups are quite “evil”, I don’t even want to change them to active ones; the scale length can be adjusted very conveniently and relatively fast.

Overall I'm very pleased with the guitar itself, except that they were delivered in poor external condition...

It’s not a bad guitar at all, it’s good entry into 7 string however, the set up is quite poor with the g string sounding muffled and fuzzy, i’m considering sending it back.

Best budget 7 string ever.

The title speaks for itself. Absolutely love how this guitar plays and sounds. Definitely am going to get more HB guitars soon!

Amazing at this price point but be ready to put in the work.

I was hesitant to order a Harley Benton since I was busy researching and playing different extended-range instruments over the last couple of months.

I was initially looking at the CST24T but they were out of stock and only due to return in a few months until I saw a B-Stock. I decided to bite the bullet and just pick up one of these with the CST24T considering the cost and this also gives me a good overview by comparing two guitars from Harley Benton.

Delivery took 4 days and the packaging was really good.

After unboxing there was a big difference in setup and first impression quality between the CST and this The CST felt amazing and was essentially perfectly setup unlike this (no problemo I like getting my hands dirty). The frets were very sharp as well as the nut nearly to the point where it might cut my hand/finger. The wood was really dry indicating that it might have been sitting somewhere for a while.

Something to take into account when buying this is that you will need to do some basic TLC. At first, the tuners felt like it was cheap, however, I would advise playing around with them a bit by turning them around a few times. They are pretty decent now. I have also replaced the strings which help with tuning stability on drop G.

Pickups are really hot, maybe a tad muddy, however nowadays it's easy to get around this with a nice setup EQ/Compression and playing with the volume knob.

Positives - After spending, let's say few hours on TLC and setup this thing is a BEAST. I am planning on upgrading the pickups and tuners in the future, however, I am really happy and struggling to put this down. The guitar is also REALLY light which I enjoy the balance is on point and the neck feels really fast.

TLDR

If you are on a budget and don't plan on spending 700 euro + on a guitar you might as well just get this.

This is a beautiful guitar

I love this guitar! I do have a couple complaints but overall it sounds good it feels good it has great weight the neck plays beautifully the action is easy to get to a very low level and still not Buzz. The sound I couldn't believe for the price is astounding. Since I've had this guitar in my other axes have gone lonely. It's a well-built machine I only have the complaint about the nut which doesn't really accommodate the 7th and 6th strings because it's not wide enough the grooves are just too narrow and they grip on while I'm tuning and makes it a little bit more difficult. There's also sharp edges on the nut that I did not find until I cut myself. Normally I could deal with all of these myself but not these days. I'm amazed cuz I've had guitars in the 800 range that don't play as well as this. I'm only playing this out of my computer so I don't know what it would sound like out of a rig but from the online , was impressed enough to take a chance and order one.

Excellent guitar

I bought this since I wanted to try out a multi-scale seven string and I was not disappointed. The finish is flawless. Everything feels sturdy including the often wonky budget switches you can find on cheaper guitars. The neck feels great although it might take some time to get used to the width of a seven string. The fanned frets only took about an hour or so to get used to and any guitar without them feels quite unergonomic now.

The tuners were a bit annoying in the beginning, the tuning stability was fine, but they had some dead spots and were very sensitive to turning. This has however stopped being a problem over time. You might want to turn them a few times without strings whenever you next change strings however.

I did however find the pickups were too muddy, luckily for me howerver, that is easy to fix. What I did was unsolder the wires running from the pickups to the pots and simply soldered them directly to the switch. Now the pickups have all the bite I could ever ask for.

If you want to retain your volume and tone controls you might want to get new pots that are 1 Meg Ohm instead of the stock 500k ones.

All in all: I doubt you can find a better guitar for the price and even if they added more to the price it would still be good value

Great quality for the price!

This is my second fanned fret Harley Benton, I also have a through-neck fanned fret 8 with a quilted top. Both have been great for the price! The 7 played pretty good right out of the box, but I still wound up putting a set of 10-59 and played around with the saddles to get the action as low as i could without any buzzes. Tempted to try shimming the neck to maybe get it a little more consistent down the whole neck, but for the price it's definitely worth it.

Great cheap base for custom guitar

This guitar was a great cheap base for making my own custom 3d printed guitar. For the life of me I could not find neck only for reasonable price, everything I could order was 500-700€ range. This one needed 2hrs of work (2 buzzing frets, action too high) and now the neck is excellent. I accidentally ordered some 7 string Warman humbuckers (that is the reason why I ordered 7 string guitar in the first place) and since stock ones are slightly muddy, I replaced them. Also, I found some cheap locking tuners.

Constructed, printed and assembled the body and replaced stock one with printed one.

This guitar now plays like a dream. Before I made custom body and after fixing neck and replacing humbuckers I had my doubts If I even want to make new body, because guitar played nice and easy. Now after everything is done, I have no regrets. I integrated tuner into body, made a slots where I can stick picks in and currently I am working on Mooer PE100 mount. It will be attached to the body and only cable needed will be the one from Mooer to in ear monitors ( I live in multi apartment building and cannot rip Marshall 100 anyway).

To summarize, guitar needs some work on the neck and it will play nicely. If one wants or needs a cheap base for making custom guitar, there simple isn't any cheaper option known to me to get essential parts needed.

Dropped tune + 7 string + fanfret

It is my third guitar, first was acustic Yam. f310, second was Ibanez RG421. In standart E Ibanez is wonderful, and I`m heapy enough. But unfortunately I can`t always change tuning down and back. So, I decided to by 7 string guitar to drop the tuning down. It was the cheapest one with the normal size of scale of the bass strings, firstly I wanted Jackson js22-7, it has well size scale too, but the prise is about two times bigger.

So, I ordered R-457:

Delivery was good, guitar looks ok, all pickups positions work right, but I haven`t checked anker. Quality is really good, but three tuning pegs quiet folter(not fatal), I tightened the nuts, no effect, at all -- they works normal; metal of strings scale regulation screw-bolts(in bridge) and furniture is too weak(like in all cheap guitars). Fanften is beautiful, nothing to say more because it only consequence of multi-scale, as for me, and I haven`t any discomfort. Multi-scale is a really interesting thing to make a bass sound. Pickups are well-working(but not Ibanez) in standart A with 13-50+59 dunlop, I`m completely satisfied. For me it lies on my hands and leg very comfortable.

Conclusion: it seems like the best and the cheapest 7-strings guitar at February 2022 for Russian consumer with one allowance that I don`t know prise for js22-7 in the other countries and experience of it

General points:

1)normal pickups and quality for the best price

2)multiscale and 7 string