Harley Benton SC-Custom II FR Vintage Black

If you are thinking about it - Buy it!!

Pros:

Definitely more pro's than cons. I bought this and love it. The styling with a Floyd rose is insane especially at this price. Quality is better than the brand new fender I bought a couple of years ago. Neck is lovely and thin and similar to my basic Ibanez wizard 3 neck. No rough fret ends, it was set up perfectly straight out of the box. other than the 3 points below just assume this is perfect! Would I buy a second if I could afford it? Hell yes!

Cons:

It is quite heavy. less so than a mahogany Les Paul and I dont get shoulder strain like I would with my LP but the main time I notice an imbalance is if I play it on my knee. This is my only guitar where I have to have a foot raiser/rest, else trying to keep it stable with your fretting hand can interfere with playing. It might be the shape of the curve rather than the weight.

Whammy bar - The bar itself is a screw with a pin through it to allow movement. I found from the very start that the threads seemed to get crossed and you would think it was in tight only to find 3 or 4 songs later it would fall on the floor. I bought an aftermarket genuine Floyd push in and locking position bar which took about 90 seconds to install and now I'm really happy with it (its "Dusty gold as opposed to just "Gold" if you are looking to match the colour)

Sound - I was a bit worried this would be high gain metal and thrash only from the vids I had seen. I generally play punk and rock and this is fine although it can sound a little thin through a katana head (most guitars seem to). Its such a lovely guitar I would use it for all styles but its definitely more wired for a "rock or heavier" sound. having said that with both pickups on, its noticeably more rounded and if you pull the splitter knob out it has a really tight, clear sound without making them tinny. I leave them split for almost every song and unlike the youtube vids I'd disagree that they immediately need upgrading to make this sound fantastic.

One other side note which might be my technique and not the guitars fault. On open E chords or the first fret, I find the head (which thankfully isnt set back anywhere like the Les Paul, so chance of snapping if accidents occur) sometimes interferes with my thumb. I have a bad habbit of not keeping my thumb inline down the far end so that may be more me and not the guitar.

I cant recommend this guitar highly enough for the price and its pretty much all I play live now.

I’ve been using it for a month now, and…

I had absolutely no expectations for this guitar. But it did really impress me.

My first impression was ; damn, it’s beautiful !

Because it is indeed a really cool looking guitar, it’s even cooler when you have it in your hands.

My second impression was the material quality, I was scared about one thing ; the strings. Well, I usually change them instantly but the ones pre-installed are actually decent ! I still have them and they’re in perfect shape.

The materials used seem pretty solid as well, I don’t feel a difference between this one and the Gibson LP so it’s a good sign!

The first and only problem I encountered was with the strap. Well, you do get strap locks in the box (which is impressive..) but I personally don’t like them so I had to buy my own. And also ; it’s. really. heavy.

I’m used to playing with heavy guitars but this one starts to hurt after literally 30 minutes of playing while standing up.

The thing that surprised me the most is the sound ! This guitar sounds INSANELY GOOD !

Like, objectively good ! The difference between this and an actual Gibson LP is so slight I just couldn’t believe it.

Though, I don’t really like it because I play thrash and black metal.

Last thing ; the floyd rose tremolo is really good. It does get out of tune sometimes, but just as much as a 1000$ axe !

In conclusion : If you’re looking to play something clean, blues, or rock, you’re really gonna want to purchase this guitar. It feels like a way more expensive guitar, I still don’t get how it’s only 400€. The floyd rose makes it even better…

Though, if you wish to play metal, ehh, think about it first. I personally feel like the sound isn’t agressive enough, you can of course buy it but I highly recommend changing the pickups…

Hope this helped !

My dream guitar

I’ve always wanted a Quality Floating tremolo guitar. The Harley Benton SC-Custom II FR is an excellent choice from bang for buck prospective. The hardware alone justifies the price, the build quality is again fantastic for the price. No regrets, this is my third Harley Benton and yet again I’m not disappointed.

Yes

could there be anything more, added to this guitar? What? I can't think of .?The Floyd Rose is everything I desired. I reset intonation but may not have needed it. I can play for hours tons of dive bombs. Still holds tune. Nut set to 9-s, . Cool. I might even try 7-s? The G string even stays good. Remember use loob, make life better.

Elegant Axe

Beautiful black satin finish trimmened with gold; a top range authentic Floyd Rose Trem; gold hardware and the sweetest sounding Roswell pickups.

Playability is excellent, and the coil tap is a cool bonus.

I own many guitars from major brands- some 'hot rodded' with Seymour Duncan and Tonerider pickups, and these Harley Benton guitars are simply ace! - and at walllet friendly prices.

I don't know how they do it?

To give you a Floyd Rose 1000 tremolo bridge with Grover tuners for this kind of money is nuts. The shelf price of the bridge and tuners alone is equal to the price of the whole guitar. That's not all. This guitar plays like a dream. You can do a dive bomb with the trem and it stays perfectly in tune. The action is incredible. The neck flies once setup properly. For those who are inclined to the Fender scale length you will feel right at home.

I know they saved some money on the matte black finish instead of some fancy flamed maple, but to get a guitar built to this level of perfection for this kind of money, they could have painted it with house paint and I would be happy.

Oddly enough you would have expected them to put some high gain pickups on here, but not so. Consequently, there is no super darkness in tones. They have just the right amount of sparkle, and yet give you a really nice overdriven distorted tones.

Get the FR bridge and guitar setup properly and the guitar stays in tune incredibly well. If anything, ever happened to this one, I would buy another in a heartbeat. Highly recommended.

Great LP

Amazing guitar overall, especially considering the price. Nice sound, the humbuckers have a lot of output and the coil-split function gives this guitar great versatility. The Floyd Rose is amazing, its thing stays in tune for days and there probably isn't a better tremolo guitar in this price range. However this guitar is still at an entry-level price which can be seen in some mistouches on the finishing, it's not even noticeable from 3 feet away but especially on that creamy band, there are some mistouches. Although it's heavy (5,3kg), I believe the weight is distributed in such a way that allows for easy standing-up play.

Wow again!!

It is made as well as any Les Paul that's on the market.

Really nice guitar for the price

I've been a guitar player for 11 years and this is a very nice addition, I mostly play metal on this but the coil split plus the floyd rose is something I've never tried and sounds pretty amazing. It came with a pretty dirty fretboard and the color is a lot lighter than the picture, the bridge cavity is very ugly, the backplates came pretty scratched and there are some minor imperfections on the finish both in the body and the headstock but nothing too bad.

Either way. For the price, the overall finish is beautiful, the neck feels great and compared to my Epiphone Ultra ll, the build quality feels great.

Pros

-Floyd Rose

-Coil Split

-Nice neck

-Good Pickups

-Nice finish

-Strap Locks (haven't tried them yet but it's still a nice feature though)

Cons (Depending on the person)

-Weight (this thing is HEAVY. I estimate around 10-15kg and most of the weight is on the body)

-Floyd Rose (if you're unpatient or are unwilling to learn how to set it up, don't get this)

Cons

-Came with the allen key for the truss rod but not for the bridge mechanism.

-Dirty fretboard

-Ugly and unfinished floyd rose cavities

-Volume knob is not as sensitive/responsive as I would like it to be.

Amazing guitar with an amazing price tag

I might be a small bit biased about this guitar, because it's my first guitar to feature a Floyd Rose Bridge, Locking Nut, and a Coil Tap on the tone knob.

The price is outstanding so there isn't a reason to talk about it further

Right out of the box, this guitar is incredible to hold. The satin black finish with the cream colored binding and gold hardware is very slick, and it's a little hard to stop staring at it all. Overall the finish seems to be perfect, I don't see any horrid mistakes anywhere. Maybe there's a tiny black speck of paint on the absolute border area of the binding, but who's going to notice that?

The hardware on the guitar is something to behold. A Floyd Rose 1000 Bridge allows me to hone whatever whammy bar skills I'd like, and in my experience so far, without losing tune. The Roswell pickups in my opinion are amazing for coming with the instrument, but I don't have much experience with anything other than stock pickups. The coil tap is very interesting and I personally love it. Messing around with the different sounds using the coil tap is very fun, and I was almost able to mock a tone from Queens of the Stone Age (and if you know that band, you know that getting Josh Homme's tone is no easy feat)!

The one problem I had with this guitar out of the box concerns the strap locks. This is my reason for providing 4 out of 5 stars to features and quality over 5 stars. When I installed the locks on my guitar strap, everything seemed fine. I screwed them in place and, when I locked the strap onto the guitar, everything was great! However, it only took a total of 20 seconds for the strap lock towards the neck to immediately pop off its strap peg! I thought "maybe I didn't put it in completely", so I tried at LEAST 15 more times, each trial resulting in the same error. I wouldn't criticize this problem so much if it didn't scare me so. Imagine someone gets this guitar as a gift, they throw their strap on it, and start jamming. Suddenly, the lock pops off its peg, and the guitar hits the floor HEADSTOCK FIRST. Very scary! I definitely think it's something to look into with these specific strap locks.