Harley Benton R-457BK Fanfret Reviews

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

Price Quality Ratio

This is my first 7 string and first fanfret guitar. It feels awesome. But the polishing work on the keyboard was not for me. Fretboard seems to scratch easily and is a little scary. I think it will require a minor modification. But the sound of the pickups, the comfort and the weight of the guitar satisfied me. Frets are great. No buzzing. It sounds like it will be a nice guitar with minor modifications in the long run.

MUD...

Pickups are trash, almost un playable with distortion.

BUT, my plan is to switch this pickups to somthing half deascent.

The guitar itself, besides the pickups, is AMAZING, frets, neck etc are amazingly good.

I am blown away of how they can make such quality guitar at this price, just need to sort the pickups issue.

Great Budget Multi-scale 7-String

Highly simplistic, no-frills, multi-scale 7-string guitar. Very playable and smooth for its price range. Hardware is lacking a bit in quality but still standard at this price point. Factory pickups are a bit muddy but one can still pull some good metal or "djent", if you will, tones out of them. I have no idea what strings are on it in the factory but prospective buyers should consider swapping right away to their favorite strings. Previous HB guitars from this series had major issues with buzzing and popping coming from the electronics. I don't have ANY of this with my R-457BK and from what I understand HB put some effort into QC and it's no longer an issue with their instruments. All around a good, solid guitar. Perfect for someone who wants to try out a multi-scale 7 under $300.

very good guitar

This guitar is surprisingly high quality for its price. The guitar was a little out of tune when it came and was set up very nicely. The build quality is really nice. The guitar feels solid. All of the frets rounded and polished. The tuners feel cheap but still feel better than my budget jacksons tuners. The knobs and selector feel good. The pickups are pretty weak through gain but a surprisingly nice clean tone. The issues I have with the guitar were expected as it is a cheap guitar. But everything else about this guitar was way better than I expected. I would say get this guitar if you want a multiscale on a budget or want to try a multiscale or if you want to mod. This guitar is an amazing mod platform. Manage your expectations before buying it.

Lovely Guitar

I brought this to try out a fan fret guitar without spending too much money. It is a good guitar for the money and plays beautifully.

For the price you can't find better

This guitar is probably the gateway to the Fanfret world for guitarist on a budget, it changed my style of playing. The active pickups are noisy, but a noise-gate fixed that.

Wanted 7 string Fanfret

Wanted to try out a 7 string fanfret to see how I’d like it. Do to COVID I’m unable to hang out like I used to. So spending time at the local guitar shop was non-existent. Also buying an outrageously priced guitar to try and return just didn’t seem right. So I’d heard good things about Harley Benton Guitars and I thought I’d give them a try. I thought for the low cost that I’d get the Harley Benton R-457BK Fanfret to try. Glad I did! Was thinking that if I didn’t enjoy the guitar or that the 7 string multiscale wasn’t for me I’d give the guitar to my grandson (or The Son-In-Law). To bad, they’ll have to wait, as the comfort, setup, and quality was well beyond what I was expecting. I’m enjoying the playability and tone. Playing through Boss Katana 100 and after a little tweaking the amp settings, this guitar sings like an American Fender HH. Cleans are clean, crunch is focused, and driven has headroom galore. Chugging is new to me and finding Dgent is coming along! Since I’m 65 and can still get a heartbeat, I need to add it to the 7th string! DGENT!

Immediately became a favorite guitar (and I have 10 of them). Everything is not simply good, but very good. Soft strings, good tuning. If you like rock with a bias in the classics - this is your choice.

Merely good as a guitar, great for the price.

I have many 7-string and 8-string guitars (even a couple with 6!) but none with fanned frets so I thought the price was right here to try it out. If you're reading this to get an idea of how much of a learning curve there is to fanned frets, let me tell you: almost none.

My complaints are: 1) the frets feel weird. Bending strings against them feels like I'm going to end up filing them down until they break. I'll probably do some work to smooth them out a bit.

2) the bridge pickup on mine was really poorly made - I hope it's not common to all these guitars. Playing the low 6 strings was fine but I got almost no signal out of my high E string. I raised that side of it as much as I dared but it still sounded about 10db quieter than the other strings. I contacted support and sent a video of the issue and was told that this is acceptable to them for guitars in this price range. I understand! I happened to have an EMG-HZ 707 (not active) sitting around - I have no idea where from - and I put that in and all the strings pick up evenly now. Since I also had a push-pull pot, I now have coil tapping on the bridge pickup. :-)

I should mention that the stock pickups are have 2 wires (for those interested in upgrading) and the neck pickup had none of the issues the bridge pickup did. The guitar in general sounds fine, although I haven't tried it in a lot of different settings yet. So while it's not the best guitar I have, for the amazingly low price I paid and the hour or so of work I put into it, this is a pretty nice addition to my collection.

Great basis for an upgrade

This is a great option for those who want to venture into the territory of extended range: 7 multiscale strings are not easy and not cheap to come by, so this price point is simply killer, and gives everyone the opportunity to try something special for less than a fortune.

That being said, you also get what you pay for, more so than on most other Harley Bentons I've bought over the years.

Out of the box, the setup was alright given the guitar's stock features, but there was a lot of room for improvement:

- The nubone nut was a bit loosely set and fell off, so I had to reattach it with superglue;

- The nut's slots deserved to be filed down a full millimeter on every string, its top trimmed down by 2-3mm, its corners rounded and sanded (otherwise they protruded too much and got in the way of playing on the first fret);

- about a third of the frets were high, so I gave them a complete levelling, dressing and polishing:

- the stock humbuckers were okay but very dark and muddy, so I replaced them with Fishman Fluence pickups and electronics (that kit alone cost almost twice as much as the guitar, but Fishman pickups sound amazing, so totally worth every penny);

- The stock tuners were decent but 1:19 ratio locking tuners (also from Harley Benton) are much better for stability for these heavy strings;

- The string ferrules on the back of the body all fell out when I destrung the guitar: their holes are a tiny bit too big in diameter, but a blob of Loctite on the side of each ferrule solved that issue;

- When properly intonated, the springs of three out of seven bridge saddles got so loose that they rattled. You either need to put longer springs in there, or add pads of some sort to compress the springs and cut out the parasite noises (I used small strips cut out of a leather strap);

- Finally the blackwood fretboard is acceptable, but be careful with lemon oil: it soaks it up quickly and spits it back for days. My biggest grievance though is this: why on earth is there no second marker at the 12th fret? Especially as there are three of them at the 24th!

Note also that the stock pickups were base-mounted and their routs are too narrow for any top-mounted alternative, including my Fishman humbuckers. So I had to get the Dremel out, rout the cavities wider (thank God it's a basswood body!), drill deeper into the body to get enough clearance for the top-mounting screws, and craft and attach home made pickup rings for top-mounting, as the guitar has no pickguard.

A nice touch is that the back control cavity was covered in shielding paint ex factory. Another positive is that the maple neck is really sturdy, stable, well shaped and smooth (I nevertheless wet sanded the back of it with some 600 grit paper for even better feel). And the overall guitar remains relatively light for something this big, and exactly balanced. No neck dive whatsoever.

Once all of the above was done (roughly 3 days of work), I could do a proper setup, adjust the trussrod, lower the action, perfect the intonation, and... ENJOY WHAT IS NOW A REAL HEAVY METAL MONSTER \m/ THAT'S ALSO VERY EASY TO PLAY, EXTREMELY VERSATILE SOUNDING, AND DEAD ACCURATE FROM FRET 1 TO 24. The last bit of buzz that remains is just because I missed a high spot on fret 13. It will soon be fixed.

Agreed, if you add the extra parts I used and the manhours I spent, this project is in the end not any less expensive than some of the entry level and even mid range alternatives from Ibanez, Jackson or Schecter, but I still love it, and have greatly enjoyed the upgrade process. Plus now my guitar is truly unique.