Harley Benton RB-612CS Classic Series 4-stars Reviews

12 String Rick Copy

A very nice guitar, the only issue is changing the strings. I suppose you can buy an aftermarket tailpiece, to make it easier to change the strings. Other than that, the guitar is really nice. Paint is awesome, pickups are real nice too.

Great jangly sound

Only an electric 12 String was missing for my collection so bought this. Excellent value and sounds great.

Very fun guitar... after some major tweaks!

I was super excited to receive this as I've ALWAYS wanted a 12 string electric. The guitar looked great upon arrival, however, the bridge had fallen back during shipping and scratched/dented the body behind the bridge a bit. Not super happy about that! Beyond that, the guitar needed A LOT of set up work to get it playable. Firstly, I had to swap the tailpiece out for a 12 hole tailpiece because it comes with a standard 6 string tailpiece. The string were essentially tangled together behind the bridge and would not hold tune at all. Then a few nut slots had to be lowered because they were way too high and making the notes sharp at the first few frets. Then it was on to usual truss rod and bridge adjustments. Overall I put in 6 plus hours of work on this to get it playable. So either I got a (almost) lemon, or all of these need a lot of work. Be prepared to put in some time on this one!

Great Guitar, Great Price

Once they finally came into stock, I received my guitar in two days....DE to USA! Great looking guitar, a couple of minor blems but for the price, excellent value.

Nice for the price

This is a nice guitar for the price.

Sound is good and parts are ok.

I had to change one of the machine heads as it was broken.

My main quality concern is the nut and bridge. Both are providing an odd string spacing. Specially the middle pairs is very far apart. Can be solved by filing new slots in the bridge and change the nut.

Overall, for the price I'm satisfied, and it is better than I expected.

Be prepared to do some setup.

I would like to start off by saying that this is actually a guitar I like quite a lot at this point. However, it had some issues to start off with. When I initially received it, it was not properly strung. The high G had snapped in transport, and one of the other strings was not seated properly in the (admittedly quite tricky) tailpiece. I initially just replaced the two offending strings (after a short battle with the stubborn tailpiece), but found the stock strings so unpleasant on my fingers that I ended up replacing them all with some GHS Boomers. Suddenly the guitar became much, much more enjoyable to play.

Aside from this, I find this guitar very satisfactory. There are of course some minor cosmetic QC issues, but nothing particularly problematic. The pickups are... fine. The only other thing that I have any issue with is the fact that the neck seems a bit more bendy than I expected. It's possible, in fact, to get a respectable vibrato effect by doing nothing more than swinging the guitar back and forth lightly. This isn't something that impairs playability at all but it is a bit surprising. Perhaps the wood wasn't dried enough?

Don't expect to play it right out of the box

I received this guitar around 2? years ago, so this is a "test of time" review as well.

Starting from The price - very attractive.

I was looking for an electric 12 string guitar and given that it's a niche guitar, the other options available would cost 10 times as much as this one.

Looks - Great, the paint, finish and hardware (looks only) look great.

Sound - pickups are ok, but a 12 string guitar has its own sound, and an electric 12 string - even more, so if you're looking for that familiar sound - you'll get it from this guitar.

So far so good... until the setup and playability:

fretwork - one of the worst fret jobs I've ever seen. buzzing everywhere, uneven frets, untreated frets (no polishing so the frets does not feel smooth) - overall very very sloppy job. I spent a lot of time on leveling, recrowning and polishing the frets in order for this guitar to be playable. luckily - I'm well experienced in that field so I saved myself a lot of money. bear that in mind in case you need someone else to do your setups for you.

setup (out of the box) - terrible and unplayable. the one good thing I can say is that the guitar has a double action truss rod, which means the neck could be adjusted both ways (back bow vs. relief).

the nut also needed serious work, but I chose to replace it with my own custom brass nut.

Tuners - bad quality, they slip sometimes and generally do not hold tuning very well.

Electronics - so far, working great after 2? years. no noises, nothing falling apart (pots, jack etc.) so good job in that area.

The main reason for this lengthy review is because when I ordered this guitar, I was told that the delivery is delayed because my guitar is being inspected and set-up... so this is either a lie or the inspector doesn't know how to do his job...

Overall - for the price and sound - worth it, just keep in mind that you might have to spend more money on setup and tuners if you really intend to play this guitar on a regular basis.

Nice 12 string sound. Finish was disappointing here and there. Customer service were very good, offered return/replace or keep the guitar with partial refund.

Cant fault that.

A great guitar for the price

I have wanted to try a 12 string guitar for a long time, but was put off by the steep prices. I already have a couple of Harley Benton guitars and have so far been happy with them, so when I spotted this HB 12 string guitar I decided to give it a go. The first impression is very good. The guitar looks fantastic and plays great. The only small minus are the pickups. They are a bit on the dark side, and might have to be changed some time in the future. Anyway, a good product at a great price, I recommend this guitar!

What a surprise

I was expecting to spend the rest of my life tuning this... I'm pleasantly surprised at how well it holds its tune! It looks lovely, feels nice to play and I'm overall really pleased. It's a bit of a novelty guitar for me but if it's something you want to add to your collection then I wouldn't hesitate in recommending one.

Very good, but....

Liking this guitar very much, just a couple things are bugging me:

-Two binding flaws, one I was able to smooth out with a scraper, the other on the f-hole where the binding pulled away from the side, this will be tricky to fix.

-If these are D'addario strings, I'll eat my hat. Played for an hour and my fingers were coal black with that sooty residue that says "these strings are China originals."

Everything else works well and looks nice, the strings are no big deal, it just seems if you are going to mention it in the item description, that's the way it should come.

Excellent guitar!

I own instruments that range into the several thousand dollar range. They are all great...and should be. I ordered this guitar on whim. I received it in about a week from Germany. Packed well and in perfect shape. A twelve string that required no neck adjustment? All I did was lower the action and change the strings. I maintains tuning and sounds awesome. I will be spreading the word!

Surprinsgly Good

I didn't know what to expect but took a shot when I bought this guitar. I bought a Chinese Ric knock-off earlier this year and it needed work when I received it. This Harley Benton (made in China) though looks beautiful. The finish is nice. Tuners work well (nice and tight). The pick guard is well done (the Chinese Ric knock-offs come with terrible looking pick guards). I plugged it in and it played with no noise and the pickups sound pretty darn good. The only problem and I had the same issue with the Chinese Ric knock-off is the screws attaching the bridge cover are too long and this does not allow the bridge itself to go very low when you need to set the action lower. The fix is to either install shorter screws or snip the screw ends and the problem is solved (the action on the guitar is too high for my tastes). For the money, this is a total winner. Highly recommended.

Not a Rickenbacker, but not ?2000, either.

I've had this in my possession now for a few days. My first impression was to send it back. It arrived with a the octave G string broken, and buzzing on open strings and at the first 5 or so frets. I decided to let it settle in for a bit, before I made a final decision. After a couple of days, I checked out the neck, and, sure enough, it was bent backward, thus causing the buzzing mentioned above. So, I adjusted the neck relief, which fixed that issue. The action was then a bit higher than it was, so I adjusted that, too. Now, it plays well, with no fret buzz, but it will need a fret leveling to get it to optimal playability, but for now, it is fine.

The tuners are a bit wonky, but once they get to pitch, they hold their tuning well enough.

The biggest hassle is getting the strings into their courses. I have large fingers, and it was very fiddly getting the replacement G octave string securely into place on the tail piece.

The sound is decent, and as this is just a 'flavour' for my recordings, will be just fine. It is a bit neck heavy, as one would expect.

In conclusion, I would say I am pleased with my purchase, as there is no way I could justify a real Rickenbacker. It may cost 1/10 the price of a real Ricky, but I don't think it is 1/10th the guitar.

Now, I am going to go play some Beatles, Byrds, and Tom Petty. :-)

Great guitar

Great guitar and I would highly recommend this to anyone wanting a vintage style 12 string on a budget. Light weight and a joy to play. First impressions were that is this a very well crafted guitar. I can't fault the construction of the body and neck at all. The bridge, tail piece and nut do look and feel a bit cheapish, but at this price you could really replace all those if you waned to and have a very solid guitar at a still very good price. The electrics are also a bit below standard in my opinion, but again, easily replaced if you wanted to go there. Overall I would say this is a great guitar priced at such that you can't really go wrong.

Astonishing quality for the price.

I have been looking for a 12 string electric to add to my collection for a while but knew a Rickenbacker was out of the question due to price. Budget electric 12-strings in the UK start at around £400 and rise steeply from there - if you can find them! When I saw this at under £200 I knew I was taking a chance but with mainly good reviews I thought it was worth a go. For a guitar which would only see occasional use, I am not at all disappointed.

Sure you get what you pay for to some extent - the wood is not the highest quality tone wood and I suspect I may need to venture inside the control panel with a soldering iron at some stage, but the build quality on the whole is very good indeed. I remember the days when budget guitars made in Far East Asia and East Germany were virtually unplayable - but not any more it seems. The finish and playability of this Chinese made guitar is excellent and matches guitars many times the price.

On my example I have a very very slight fret buzz at one location - but the neck is straight so it can easily be resolved with a file on the offending fret. If I wanted to upgrade this guitar I would start with the machine heads which could be smoother then look at upgrading the wiring and then possibly the pick-ups (but those fitted aren't at all bad).

Even without these upgrades the guitar is very playable, and at a tenth of the price of the Rickenbacker 620 it does homage to, it is great value for money.

The good, the bad and the ugly

I bought this knowing it was a budget 12 string guitar. It was half the price of the closest electric 12 string and less than a Tenth of the price of a Rickenbacker, so you get what you pay for right?

The good - The construction of this is very good. It's slightly neck heavy as you'd expect but not any problem. There are a few flaws on the finish but you'd have to look hard to find them. My nightmare would be if there were would be buzzes or rattles with the strings due to the budget nature. On mine though, there's not. It's nice and straight, the nut fitting is good. The neck is really playable, the tuning is very stable and I find myself picking it up to play it all the time.

The Bad - The pickup wiring failed almost straightaway. On inspecting behind the scratchplate, the soldering was really poor, the wiring was bad and the quality of the pots was terrible, even for a cheap guitar.

I kind of expected this though and I ended up replacing all the pots for CTS ones, tidied up the wiring and resoldered etc.

It was easy enough to do and the resulting jump in sound quality made it more than worthwhile. I had thought of replacing the Pickups too but actually they're not too bad for now and I can always do that in the future if necessary.

The ugly - In copying the Rickenbacker style control panel. The makers stuck two bits of plasticcy looking scratchplate material together roughly. It had sharp edges and looked bad. As I had the scratchplate off to fix the wiring anyway, I made an attempt to replace the scratchplate with a piece of white Pearliod material I had left over from a hobby project. The result turned out great and really improves the look of the guitar. It was easy to do and the guitar now looks and plays so well that people comment on it all the time.

I would recommend this guitar but would just put a warning that the wiring and quality of the pots is poor and you may have to rectify that.

Overall though, I'd buy one again. Even with the cost of parts etc this guitar is €150 cheaper than the nearest 12 string electric I've seen and I'm really happy with it.