Harley Benton R-458 BK Progressiv Series Reviews

Just great

Pros

Solid as a rock

Holds tune really well

Nice neck shape

Switch feels solid

Sounds really nice - the pickups work really well on the lower strings

Cons

The pickups are a little bit quiet but this isn't much of a problem

Frets came sharp. This was fixed with a fret file and sanding sponge in 10 minutes.

The strings it comes with are too floppy on the low F# string. Would recommend using a thicker string guage.

Big bang for the buck

Great product, it arrived properly set up, so I could start playing right away. I was surprised that the stock pickups actually sound nice, even for clean tones. My goal with this guitar was to experiment with various tunings and learn to play an 8 string in general to get the idea if it was for me or not. It was perfect for this! The frets were not super smooth by the edges, but good enough not to complain. The guitar feels a bit cheap, definitely not a fancy instrument, but I only got praise on it (both it looks and its sound) when performing with it. Eventually I sold it (without any issue) because I moved to another country.

Need to consider the cost

I bought this guitar to get acquainted with an 8-string instrument.

The sound is not bad, but it came with a chip on the neck. The second guitar I have is Jackson rr-3 (Japan) and of course, in comparison, this guitar is a little worse in everything, but considering the cost, it is an excellent purchase.

Highly recommend.

Bought for a Hobby, Kept for the Quality

I originally bought this guitar in the white color, and the quality impressed me so much that I decided to order this one so that I could have one to adjust and tweak to my liking and get some more practice doing mods. That was the plan, but when I got this beast there was so little work to do.

I'll preface this by saying that this is most likely NOT the guitar that I would take up on stage with me, but it is a perfectly capable and well-made instrument. I was anticipating having hours of work ahead of me to get this thing sounding like I wanted it to, but I was pleasantly surprised at how good it sounded right out of the box.

As for the downsides:

The tone knob seems to have no gradual control over the sound and changes sharply at around 5pm. The tuning heads are also a bit touchy and you'll find yourself hovering around notes on a tuner instead of hitting it dead on in the lower register of the instrument.

Like I said, I probably wouldn't be jamming with this bad boy on stage, but it's a great toy to have.

I love the neck pickup because its more clean then the bridge.

If you hook it up to a marshall MG it crushes. ;)

But don't tune it like a normal 8 string, but shift all up a string! ;=)

I use this tuning: G# C# F# B E G# C# F# (bottom to high)

Great guitar

I have nothing negative to say about this guitar. It was great straight out of the box. Maybe for the first time I didn`t have to adjust the neck, saddle or intonation. Thanks.. I`ve already order another one, but this time with fanfrets :)

Good to start playing around with 8 strings, bad for customisation

Perfect guitar if you wanna try out 8 strings. But if, like me, you planned on upgrading the mics, forget about it!

Amazing Value for the price

If you are looking for a quality 8 string guitar with great value, this is the guitar for you. This beast has amazing tone and construction for the price and can definitely be used in a gig setting as well as the studio.

Cons:

The strings that come stock are not the best and I recommend switching them out immediately. On my model, the input jack was a little loose. An easy fix but it's definitely something to watch, just to be safe.

And finally, the instrument definitely needs a setup. The intonation is a little off and fret buzz is abound. You can also use a fret wrap to mitigate this but a set up is definitely recommended.

This guitar is an excellent choice for that djent sound or technical death metal tone, but does so much more. Such as experimental open tunings, ambient guitar, the works. You get a quality instrument that holds a tune for less than half the price of the typical extended range. While it may not match the quality of the most high quality fenders or Gibsons, it can easily hold it's own between a mid range fender and a high range Epiphone. Well worth the price

Can't go wrong at this price

If you're looking for an 8 string guitar without breaking the bank, this is the one to go for.

I ordered this on a whim after listening to an Animals as Leaders album and deciding that I wanted to have a go at the whole extended range experience. It's absolutely not what I play live, so there was no point in spending a fortune on any of the (really very nice) 8 strings that are available from the 'premium' brands, so I thought that this would do the job.

Some other reviewers have noted that some setup was needed when the guitar arrived, but this wasn't my experience at all. It arrived promptly, and straight out of the box I was able to break into some seriously heavy riffing. The finish was remarkable for a guitar at this price point, and would rival instruments at several times its price. I find the neck to be very pleasing to play on, and the guitar is well weighted.

In terms of shortcomings, the guitar does show its price in some ways. The pickups have a tendency to sound a bit muddy, particularly when shown to any sort of gain. They lack the clarity of some of the big-name pickups, but this is to be expected when a single pickup can be more expensive than this whole guitar. If I were to be using this live I would consider swapping them out for something from Seymour Duncan or DiMarzio, but the fact that I would do that instead of just buying a new guitar should speak highly of the basic quality of the instrument.

Other shortcomings include the tuners, which have been prone to slippage in my experience. Nothing too major, but frequent retuning is necessary.

Overall, if you're interested in trying out the extended-range world, this Harley Benton is a great place to start!

Awesome 8 string!!

The quality of this product was not what I expected from a guitar of this price point. Sounds terrific and plays real easy and smooth. Overall I would definitley recommend this guitar!!!!

Eeeeeeyoooooooo

It is very self explanatoring it is a good choise if you want an 8 string but you are learning or just for fun and if you grow to like the feeling of the 8 string you can still change the pickups.

Great for a start.

I bought this as a ''keyboard'' for more range in guitar practice. In fact it is a good choice if you wanna get involved with a guitar with more strings. it is better - and also great for the price - than buying a 7stringed.

Twisted Neck

Nice Guitar but My came with a twisted neck. I fixed it and now is ok. I just have bad luck I think.

Suitable as first 8 String Guitar

I buy this guitar to practice, and just to put it as my second guitar since sometime I interested to play some metal or djent...

I don't have any issue of this guitar except toggle switch, it make some sound when I switch it and it made of plastic... this guitar came with some stock string which for me doesn't sound right...

and may be, I'm going to change it pick-up since some of my friend thoughts that it doesn't capture low sound really details...but for now I'm happy with it and just use it as the way it is...

Harley Benton R-458 vs Ibanez RG8

As an owner of both guitars, I can see that almost every feature and measurement of this is extremely similar to the RG8. And why not, right? Both great guitars. The frets are about half an inch smaller all along the neck, in comparison to the Jumbo frets on the Ibanez.

This Harley Benton is the best and cheapest entry-level 8 string on the market. However the pickups are very bad and noisy in comparison to the Ibanez. The Ibanez delivers the clairty you hear in modern progressive metal bands, and the warmth and diversity for everything else. The Harley Benton sounds embarrassingly weak, but pulls off clean tones well enough to be enjoyable.

The Harley Benton is great for playing unplugged. It's about 1/3 lighter than the Ibanez due to the smaller, rounded body and the smaller fretboard makes it easier to get used to using the 7th and 8th strings.

The tone/volume pots and very delicate, consider taking the back panel off and reinforcing them, using them lightly is the only way to avoid damaging them as they are cheaply fixed at the back.

Consider taking it to a technician as it probably went through a cheap set up, mine needed intonating and the string height adjusted to avoid the 7th and 8th string fret/string buzz, which you will get on the Ibanez too.

If you're buying an 8 string for the first time, buy this one. If/when the novelty wares off then you won't have wasted £300 more for the Ibanez. If you have the money, and don't like hoarding/testing guitars, buy the Ibanez!

Pleasantly surprised

Bought to dip into the extended range stuff, and this guitar was well worth the money. Having played my friend's Ibanez RG8, this guitar stands its ground brilliantly, and for the price it's at, absolutely unbeatable

An elegant and affordable 8-String starter

I got this guitar because I wanted to start playing around with extended range instruments.

My first impressions were very good despite the fact that the head-stock had a small broken piece. It most likely broke during shipping.

The guitar has a very nice shapes, it's contours are all rounded and there are not rough edges.

The high gloss black finish also looks nice.

The fretboard did not have any sharp fret, there is however a bit of buzz that should be fixed with a bit of a setup.

As I've never played an 8 string, I was quite concerned about the neck being too thick, however to my surprise the neck is really thin and is a bliss to play on, after a couple of hours it really felt like this instrument was no different from my 6 string in terms of playability.

The string that were already on the guitar seem a bit bigger that the one indicated on the sale page, the low F# must be an .85

I needed a little while to find how to bring the best out of these hi-gain pickups. I may change the bridge one with a Pegasus as a more versatile choice.

Overall, an amazing starting point and a great instrument to have in your arsenal!

Very good for the price

Let's be realistic, if you are paying this price you are not going to get a Pro instrument equivalent, costing at least 5x more. As such, gripes about finish, pickups etc need to be filtered through a reality-check.

For the price this is an excellent instrument. The only real downside for me was that at this scale length (25.5"), the F# string is a bit too flabby. This can be compensated with heavier strings but with a single trussrod in the neck you need to be careful. Pickups are adequate/good while hardware is what you would expect for the price.

As an introduction into 8 strings this is excellent and at this price you can't go wrong since if you like the rig (which at a distance can easily be mistaken for a Schecter) you can afford better pickups/machineheads etc.

Excellent Entry Level 8-String

I decided i 'needed' an 8-String guitar and figured before shelling out an obscene amount of money on one i should go with a less expensive model. I'm perfectly happy with it. It hasn't got locking nuts or micro tuners. It hasn't got a fanned fret board. The recommended initial tuning is somewhat odd, but whatever. It chugs, it widdles, its amusingly wide due to the extra two other strings. This is an excellent starting point to gauge if an 8-string is useful to you. Turns out that for me, this is all i need. Found it reasonably slick to play and sludgey at the bottom end. As with any guitar, if set up to your requirements you'll be able to turn it into the machine you deserve. Perfectly happy.

Excellent guitar!

After looking through numerous reviews for this product I decided to commit and pick one up, have to say I am incredibly happy with this, the guitar is incredibly well made, although the pickups as others have said are a little hot, still sounds good!

The guitar arrived in 3 days to the UK, very fast delivery and the tracking was in depth. Only slight concern is that the headstock looks like it has had a small knock, but this is not noticeable face on. For the price I would highly recommend this as if you want to take a step into 8 string guitars this is definitely value for money!