Harley Benton R-458MN WH Fanfret Reviews

Tons of problems

Guitar is not grounded. Guitar will not intonate. What good is a guitar that will not intonate and needs to be sent to a guitar tech to take the guitar apart to run a ground to the bridge

Great buy at a great price.

Shipping was fast, the guitar came set up well however the factory strings less than steller. After putting on a fresh set of strings I was very pleasantly impressed by the playability and overall construction of the guitar, there were no lose screws and the pickups sounded great when plugged in. Even after a few months of playing the guitar plays well. The tuners that come stock are functional and do work but they are definitely the least impressive piece of hardware that come stock. Overall this guitar is a great buy at an outstanding price.

Djentastic!

Is it noticably cheap? Yes. Does it djent? Hell yeah!

Amazing quality and performance considering the price. Great value for guitarists who are looking into getting an 8-string. Slap on some good thick strings and you're good to go.

Amazing 8-string guitar for this price! Aprox. 2 weeks for delivery to Russian Federation. Nice work!

I wasn't expecting much

I'm not a guitarist but i wanted a 8 string guitar in the studio so i can help writing riffs for my band. I was pleasantly surprised when i got it. It had some tiny, tiny blemishes in the finish which are only visible if you inspect it very closely. I dont care about that though, especially for the price.

The sound isnt bad at all, it's not great but i was expecting it to sound alot worse. Some fiddling around with the amp and i get a tone that's well worth keeping on a demo.

Tuning stability is decent aswell. I've had worse tuners on guitars costing alot more so i cant complain.

Feels great to play and it looks awesome! Sure i wouldnt use it on a album recording. But if i was a starting guitarist wanting to learn to play a 8string or fanned fret guitar i would highly suggest getting this!

I use this guitar as is

Great for standard tune brutality. If you want to hear what this instrument can do goto youtube look up Xoddamnoche Mount of the skulls and listen this is the guitar i used for all the rhythms on that track Brutality!!! Chris Maddox,

Outstanding quality for the price

Using the guitar for home studio recording /w an audio interface.

I rated it 5 stars because you *cannot* get a better 8-string multi-scale guitar at this price point.

PROS

- Excellent construction, lightweight

- Holds tuning, great action (I put it in eBGDAEAE right away)

- Smooth neck & fretboard, very comfortable to play even if it's your first 8-string

- Clean, nick/scratch-free

- Fanned frets are intuitive and angled to the natural twist of your hand

- Volume & tone knobs do what they should; no complaints here.

CONS

- The passive pickups are bad. If you plan to record or play live, expect to replace them. For practice & private-jamming, they're fine. To clarify: There is intense ambient noise (even clean) and low notes / rhythms / chords / palm-muting sound very muddy, it took a lot of gating & EQ to clean it up, and it's still less than stellar. The pickups work fine for single-plucked notes / leads.

That's really the only con... and for an 8-string fan-fretted guitar, It's absolutely worth the price; very well-constructed. Just expect to upgrade the pickups if you plan to record or use it in a professional capacity.

Good for the price

The body and neck are both great. Feels great and looks amazing.

Mine came with pretty sharp fret edges, but it's 100% playable still.

The pickups are a bit noisy, and sound kinda mushy. I have not changed the strings, so this might help to get some clarity.

Arrived in Canada 4 days after ordering, totally set up and ready to play. Fantastic value for dollar and unbeatable service.

Fantastic guitar for the price

I was a little nervous about buying such a cheap guitar, but Harley Benton really know how to do a lot with a little, and I couldn't be happier with this guitar, perfectly for dipping your toes into the world of extended range guitars

Value for Money

I wanted to experiment with an 8 string, but wasn't quite sure if i would end up playing it often. So i decided to give it a go since i had played a few harley benton instruments and thought they were pretty good for the price.

First impressions: Its sturdy, very lightweight with good ergonomics and fairly balanced

Pros:

1) Its a very well build instrument especially if you consider the price.

2) I'm having no problems restringing or tuning the guitar so far. The tuners (in compination with the nut) hold the guitar in tune in most cases, except if you do a crazy bend like 2 whole steps.

3) The fretboard has no sharp edges, the frets seem to be in good condition and so far i haven't found any dead spots. The shape of the neck is really flat kind of like esp's thin U (one of the most comfortable necks out there)

Cons:

1) The pickups are very noisy and in my opinion they are the biggest con of this guitar. If you play many strings at once (especially the lower with the higher ones) the sound becomes muddy and undifined.

Overall, this guitar does the job more than satisfactory. You definetly don't have to uprade it but if you do (specifically the nut and pickups) this guitar can become a major axe for your arsenal. Definetly recommending it to anyone who wants to experiment and wants an introduction to the 8 string world.

Best for its price

Guitar turned to be near perfect. The only flaws are black dots under the paint. It does not have any hum. The pickups are passive unlike the same guitar models from couple of years ago that had active. Soundwise it is pretty good when clean but when distorted can get a bit muddy on low strings.

A fantastic instrument for those wanting to try out 8 string guitars, and perhaps beyond just trying out.

I've had this guitar for about 5 months now, since March 2020 (it is August 2020 as I'm writing this) and I feel ready to share my thoughts about it.

I want to start out by saying that I'm an intermediate guitar player (about 13 years of play) who has only ever owned cheap (think sub-300€) guitars, so my standards aren't extremely high. Even considering this, I went into this purchase with my expectations not too high up, despite all the glowing reviews I've read online. And let me tell you: I expected to take a much worse instrument out of that box. Here are some of the things I love about it:

- Looks: it looks great. Outside the places where the guitar has been cut, like the neck slot and pickup cavities, the finish is super smooth.

- Playability: I love the neck on this thing. Mine is maple with a maple fretboard, but from what I've seen you may get it with amaranth on the fretboard. Now, your mileage may vary since it *is* an 8 string guitar, so the neck is dauntingly wide compared to a traditional 6 string, but the shape and smoothness of the back of the neck (which is unfinished, completely natural wood) makes it super comfortable to play. Even the fanned frets haven't given me a lot of trouble (with the exception of barre chords closer to the nut), but again, your mileage may vary. The hardware (pickup selector and pots) feel great, very smooth. Also, the fret ends are not poking out at all.

- Out of the box setup: The guitar came pretty decently setup (outside a few things I mention below). The action was pretty low (I did lower it a bit more to my personal liking), the neck was straight as an arrow and the intonation was pretty much perfect.

Onto the negative:

- The nut. This was my first big gripe with the instrument. I haven't seen any more reviews complaining about this, but mine was horribly cut. It was so bad that the 8th string would just jump out of the nut slot if I plucked it normally with a 1.4mm pick. I had to deepen it and widen it by hand (my first time doing this) and now the problem is fixed, for the most part. The badly cut nut also affects tuning, in that the string binds on it. My tip is to always tune *up* to pitch, that way the nut won't be a problem for stability. I'll be looking for a luthier to see if they can do a nut replacement.

- Pickups: they're muddy. That's it. Not a lot of clarity, bad string separation. This is somewhat manageable if you adjust your amp settings a bit, but the pickups are definitely one of the first things I'm upgrading.

- Out of the box presentation: the fretboard had some sawdust on it which I had to clean off. There were also some wood shavings around the neck slot, which came out fine.

- Frets: I know I said the fret ends were fine, but the fret surfaces... Ouch. Extremely rough out of the box. Bending a string was like running a block of metal along a bed of nails. This smoothed out naturally with play and the frets feel fine by now, but during the first week or two, they felt pretty bad. I will be purchasing a fret dressing kit to try and polish them properly. Also, my 24th fret is slightly raised on one end, such that fretting my high E string at fret 23 produces an E, instead of the expected D#. Luckily, I pretty much never use those frets so this isn't an issue. This does not happen on any other string or fret.

Those are the biggest things I want to point out about the guitar. You may be thinking I pointed out a lot more negative than positive; do I regret this purchase? Would I buy it again? The answers to those questions are "Absolutely not" and "For under 200€, absolutely yes!". The playability of the guitar to me far outweighs the flaws I pointed out. I've been having lots of fun playing it and if something happened to it I would definitely get another (and who knows, the second one might come with a better cut nut ;) ).

In conclusion, if you want to try an 8 string on the cheap, I can definitely recommend this one. Especially since the biggest flaws are all in upgradable parts, so if you're willing to invest more, you can just upgrade this guitar and end up with a amazing instrument which rivals guitars 10x its price.

Update (April 2021): it has been a little over a year since I've had this guitar. I've replaced the pickups with Fishman Fluence (Tosin Abasi set, they fit perfectly in the pickup cavities with no modification/routing required), installed locking tuners, and got a luthier to swap the nut for a bone one and do a professional set-up and fret leveling. The guitar is now pretty much flawless. Sounds incredible with a ton of versatility thanks to the pickups I installed and feels amazing to play. It was already amazing for the price, but if you're willing to upgrade down the line, it just makes it that much more worth it. I've left the star ratings as they were before since I want them to remain relevant to what the guitar is like out of the box, but in its current state, I'd rate it 5/5 in every category.

Fantastic, How is This Only £160?

Have had this for out a month now and it really is amazing how this only costs as much as it does.

PROS:

-Extended, multi-scale for stable low strings -without over-tightening the high strings.

-No sharp edges etc on the frets, nice action and well set up from the start (although intonation needed a little adjusting).

-Looks beautiful

-Tuning stays pretty stable

-Lovely range of tones for the most part, and even playing acoustically sounds nice. But, get the right set up of amp/fx and it sounds incredible.

CONS:

-High end on the bridge pickup loses volume. Pickups are slightly muddy but at this price they're still great.

-Locking tuners would be nice (a set of 4L 4R seem pretty difficult to find if you want to upgrade).

Delivery was pretty good and it arrived in fine condition, well-packaged.

I would 100% recommend getting one if you're tempted by 8-strings, but not by how much they cost.

Had no issues with it

Plays great and keeps in tune.

I play it a whole tone down so I can try things out without having to speak to a bassist.

Excellent first 8 String Guitar, \m/ Metal Approved \m/

I think this guitar is an excellent choice if you want to experiment with 8 strings and not spend a lot of money,

It loos amazing, the body has some contours that definitely catch your attention, overall is well constructed and feels solid, the tuners are not the best but they do what they have to do.

The guitar has very good tuning stability, the neck profile is thin

The only thing I did notice is that the frets needed a little more polish, but the more you play with it, will eventually do not bother you, as the frets will polish on normal use.

Pickups are OK, they do not have that hum noise, as posted on other comments, maybe they changed something.

Another thing! the fretboard is Maple if i'm not wrong, not Amaranth as is shown on the picture, but that change for me makes the guitar looks better, see the pictures for the 7 string version, looks like that one, but this one is 8

Fantastic guitar for the money!

The most of affordable 8 string guitar on the market. Order came early. For my first string I am extremely impressed. First fanned fret guitar too. Very impressed.

Amazing budget guitar!

This thing is a BEAST! Sounds great, stays in tune and looks beautiful!

HB 8 string Fan fret

Great guitar for the price! Came to me in perfect condition, the neck and action is wonderful! Highly recommend this guitar for anyone looking to buy their first 8 string fanfret! Beautiful guitar and great bang for buck!

For this cost you won't find a better extended range multiscale guitar

I got this guitar as a test to see if 8 strings multiscales are 'my thing'. I immediately fell in love with it as it is quite comfortable and the sound is not bad at all.

I only have one complain about it. To this day, in June 2020, it is still listed with an Amaranth fretboard. Please not that this is NOT the case. I got mine with maple fretboard and black dot inlays. I actually like it more like this and that's why I would not ask for a return. But keep it in mind if you are really a fan of Amaranth. :)

Moreover, you have probable seen some online reviews about these models where a 'muddy' tone form the pickups is mentioned. I don't know if the problem has been fixed but mine sound alright with clean tones. Totally usable even at high levels.