Harley Benton ST-62CC MN Dakota Red Reviews

Great budget guitar

Just perfect for the price , sounds good , plays well with!

HB ST 62 Excelent for beginners

Great sound! Great quality/price. I really recommend It for beginners.

A guitar that makes me smile

Straight out of the box, it was just about playable. After a little bit of standard setup, it makes me smile each time I play it. I am very pleased with my purchase. Does all I expected of it and more.

Bad News

I have 4 HB's. This thing was not good. The whammy bar throws it way out of tune. I even tried to, "block" the whammy bar but there were just too many issues. In my opinion, I would never even think about playing out live with this guitar. Sadly, it's just not up to the task.

I took the whammy bar off it and I'm going to put some work into turning it into a hard-tail since I hate whammy bars but need that strat sound. Once I plug the whammy bar cavity and mount a fixed-bridged on it, I'll report back.

A mixed experience.

Bought because of previous great experience buying an Ash body HB '52 Telecaster Natural - a truly amazing budget guitar. This '62 Strat tribute is not quite in the same class as that Tele. 1) There's something strange about the Neck or the Bridge placement in the body, so that the Top 3 strings are pulling the saddles off-line towards the Top E edge of the fingerboard, making the strings unable to stay in the centre of the saddles. 2) Out-of-the-box imo this guitar is not really ready to play - it needs a full Set-Up which if you cannot do it yourself will cost you to have done. The intonation is out on all strings, and the action is way too high - not comfortably playable. So you or your tech guy might need to get busy on the basic three parts of a set-up : Neck relief; Action; Intonation. Having said all that i really like this cheap-as-chips Strat for its looks, (excellent paint-job) its nice neck, and its sounds; and after the set-up, its playability. Defo not for returning !

really nice

neck is more flatter than my mim strat which is better for my taste. really nice body color and finish. I liked the pick ups. no need to upgrade them.

I wish the neck had a glossy finish i really dont like matte finish. it feels slower to play.

the tuners and nut could be replaced and its a really nice guitar.

don't let the price fool you. this guitar has tones and feels like a good one.

my tone knob is a bit up-lifted i dont know why.

Surprisingly good.

I've been playing guitar for 50 years and have owned too many guitars to count. I took a chance on one of these and I have to say I'm blown away. The fit and finish are excellent, the nut was cut well and no sharp fret edges or sprout at all. I put Wilkinson tuners and better bridge saddles on mine but really, this guitar is pretty good stock. I like this ST-62 better than the Squier Classic Vibe I used to own; the Squier CV felt "cheap" to me, but this guitar with upgraded tuners and saddles is GREAT. My only "complaint" is that the trem arm is a little tight and I wish it would screw down a little further. Overall, great value. I also own one in the Vintage White and it's also flawless.

Love it!

Plays great, looks amazing, no issues, nice fast matt neck. The action is a little high but I haven't got around to lowering it because it just feels nice and crispy and I don't want to mess with it yet. It was almost in tune sraight out of the box as well! I bought a sea-foam green tele-a-like at the same time and really pleased with that too.

Nice, Playable, Solid

I had just purchased a true Fender Strat (stamped 'made in Coronado California" paid around 1300.00 I got it home and saw this HB ST-62CC and thought 'what the heck' will give it a try so I ordered it. Well I got it unpacked it, tuned it up (not by much) and played, it was really sweet!

Good out of the box. Brilliant with a little work!

I play a lot of guitar, and play the occasional pub gig. I have a handful of guitars but inexcusably no strat. I really fancied that classic shape but didn’t want to spend too much then heard good things about these.

It arrived after a week (very reasonable considering how far it’s come!) and was well packaged in 2 boxes.

Out of the box after a quick tune up it played pretty well for a guitar of this price range. The neck was good and all the frets level and indeed crowned, no sharp fret edges either with a slightly rolled fingerboard.

The biggest downsides were tuning issues from the bridge (easy fix detailed below) and the nut slots not being quite deep enough.

So for the setup I used my nut files to lower the height to the first fret which made the open chords easier ring out a bit better.

The other was getting the trek to sit better, I slacked the springs off a bit as they were VERY tight and tightened down the two outer screws on the trem.

Last things I have done are lubricate the nut with a pencil and adjust action at the saddles and set intonation.

After this pretty standard setup the guitar is now beautiful to play. It’s my go-to and I can even do repeated dive bombs and the tuning barely budges.

The pickups have a bit of power in them for single coils so it’s a really versatile guitar that can even do hard rock tones.

Another point is the quality of the woodwork, the neck pocket is better than any strat I’ve seen! Everything is so neat and precise with this guitar, I would definitely recommend.

Bad point: trem atm is screw in and can be a bit wobbly, but it’s a minor point.

There were a few adjust

Great guitar for re-entering the playing world

After a few years' hiatus, I wanted to encourage myself to start playing again. The ST-62 is a real temptress, inspiring me to pick it up and play for an hour or two a day. Nice action, decent finish, and good sound. The pickups hum a bit, might try shielding them since I don't think the cavities are shielded.

My Harley Benton ST-62CC MN Dakota Red guitar arrived in Australia from Europe quickly, and well packaged. I'm absolutely delighted with the quality, tone and action of this guitar. I ran the ruler over it and didn't have to adjust the nut, bridge, or frets. It came fully ready to play.

I plan to add copper shielding, plus switch to a Graph Tech TUSQ XL Slotted Nut and Graph Tech TUSQ XL Sleek String Trees. However, these are not essential changes due to any faults with this guitar.

Great guitar for the price

Excellent guitar for the price. Good intonation and the tuners kept the strings in tune. No QC issues at all. Great beginner guitar, or a good start for a strat project.

My first Strat shaped guitar

I decided to buy this because I wanted that funky sound that Fender Strats have... it sounds and feels exactly like one!

Value for Money

Superb value for money. This is a great guitar. I love playing it. It's my seconf HB guitar and it won't be my last. HB is my future supplier of choice. Well done.

Harley Benton ST-62CC MN Dakota Red

Delivery and packaging are done well. The guitar is good. There are no complaints. Thanks to the Tomann team.

Dakota Red is great

I'm surprised. I expected much less for such a price. I have always wanted a red and white ST guitar, and with a slightly limited budget I even came up with a very good product. I am highly satisfied with my purchase.

Very good for the price

I've seen a great deal of very positive reviews about this guitars and I have to completely agree with them. I won't talk about positives beacause except for minor flaws I will mention below, everything else is very good quality.

First flaw is color. I mean paint job is very good but photos here don't exactly do it justice. Neck looks like it is clear coated but it's not. In reality neck has orangish tinge and red paint is "candy-like". In result whole guitar is has very "candy-like" (sorry for the repetition but this phrase best describes it), bright color, like you would have turn up brightness on the picture.

Second are tuners - pretty rough.

Third is 1 ply pickguard.

However these are very minor flaws in this price range. Only pictures in my opinion should be more acurate and for that I took one starfor finish.

Best thing in this guitar for me is neck - looks (except for the orange tint) and feels very good.

In my opinion these guitars are almost comparable to Classic Vibe series. I don't know a better guitar in these price, very much recommended.

bang on

the sound out of this guitar is just spot on for a 62 strat and the neck pickup is 10 times better than my fender deluxe i dont like the neck as much as my strat being a flatter profile,, but when you get used to it its nice,, but the sound out of the pickup are bang on,, roswell got the pickups spot on if you wont a strat that sounds like a real 62 strat,,, get this guitar and for a £111 pound guitar it is behind belief what you get with this guitar 5 star and some

STUNNING GUITAR!!!!

I did some research across a wide range of affordable stratacaster style guitars and came across the Harley Benton range, being 65 years old and on a limited budget i purchased the Harley Benton ST 62CC MN in Dakota red.

On unboxing and inspecting the guitar i was quite suprised at the fit and finish of this model. Tuning keys work very smoothly, nut fitted SPOT ON! neck of guitar finished very well with no frett sprout at all. All i had to do was tune it up and start STRUMMING!

Overall i am highly satisfied with my purchase.

Would recommend this stunning guitar .