Is Harley Benton a good or bad thing?

YellowLedBetterMan

Sassafras said:

I think they're a good thing.
They allow their youthful workforce the chance to contribute to their families finances.
An extra $2 dollars a week can make the difference between eating and starving.
What else are those 12 year old kids gonna do?
Keeps them off the streets.

I know you may be taking the piss here, but this is something I remember discussing in length during A Level Geography many moons ago. $2 a day to the Western man may not be much at all, but in some parts of the world, $2 a day makes them the richest man in their street. It's all about relativity.

As for the topic at hand - I doubt the likes of Harley Benton will affect Gibson, Fender etc. too much. What it may affect is their subsidiaries, Squier, Epiphone, etc. If you have, say, £3000 in the bank and want a Les Paul, you're buying a Gibson, not an Epiphone or HB. If you have £300 in the bank and want a Les Paul, now you have options.

rossi

Harleys are good fun and you usually get a decent playable instrument regardless of any upgrades .Anything else is just up to your assessment of  what a  decent guitar  is .

Rocker

I am thinking of buying a cheap Tele to replace my old Squire Tele (the one I gave away due to a neck problem that was uneconomic to repair).  I am considering HB, reasonable models for around €160 from Thomann. To complicate things, I found that Music Minds in Dublin sell their own shop branded Teles for about the same price. I tried one unplugged and it felt fine. Not like my USA Fender but better than reasonable considering the price. Some day soon I will go and try them out through an amp. My biggest question is do I need another guitar? That money spent on lessons might make more sense. 

scrumhalf

An HB and a Gibson are both guitars but they are produced for very different sectors of the guitar-buying market.

HB are producing what would appear to be reasonable quality instruments for beginners, which can then have the hardware upgraded should the beginner progress. That is a good thing.

Legionreturns

People buying new Dacias don't then fit them with a Ferrari engine and pay someone to refinish the inside in plush leather. 

They are however, buying a fully working, brand new car that is guaranteed to do its job. 

The people that spend £60-100k on a posh Audi / Merc / Tesla are still buying just a car. 

It's horses for courses.

gringopig

.

Barnezy

gringopig said:

Plenty of people pay large amounts of money for loads of things I find totally irrelevant to me. People buy bicycles for £5k! Cars that cost 10's of thousands! Huge expensive televisions and whatnot. They go on holiday at massive expense.
All totally irrelevant to me.

I will pay loads for a guitar though and I'm not going to buy a Harley Benton. I saw some Eastcoast brand guitars the other day; very nice looking guitars and ideal for for an BMW owner who mountain bikes on holiday  in France and streams his trip back from the GoPro onto the 60" and occasionally plays Wonderwall for 10 minutes at the weekend.

It's all relative to your income and interest in the hobby. Some people can afford all those things without it even denting their finances, some people simply can't and need to focus on the things that really interest them.

I used to race bikes and trust me, at a certain level you needed a £2k+ bike to stay competitive. Some would spend £4k on just their wheels. I had friends that worked in bike shops and lived in crappy apartments, but had bikes worth £8k+ and no money to go out.

On the other extreme you get tight wads like my brother who plays in a band with me, using a £100 Epi with 2 year old strings, yet earns £150k+ a year. Thankfully I talked him in to upgrading to a used PRS for £400 this month. 

Ultimately we're all just filling the empty void inside ourselves  

Funkfingers

Barnezy said:

Ultimately, we're all just filling the empty void inside ourselves  

Oo-er, missus.

SlopeSoarer

Barnezy said:

gringopig said:

Plenty of people pay large amounts of money for loads of things I find totally irrelevant to me. People buy bicycles for £5k! Cars that cost 10's of thousands! Huge expensive televisions and whatnot. They go on holiday at massive expense.
All totally irrelevant to me.

I will pay loads for a guitar though and I'm not going to buy a Harley Benton. I saw some Eastcoast brand guitars the other day; very nice looking guitars and ideal for for an BMW owner who mountain bikes on holiday  in France and streams his trip back from the GoPro onto the 60" and occasionally plays Wonderwall for 10 minutes at the weekend.

It's all relative to your income and interest in the hobby. Some people can afford all those things without it even denting their finances, some people simply can't and need to focus on the things that really interest them.

I used to race bikes and trust me, at a certain level you needed a £2k+ bike to stay competitive. Some would spend £4k on just their wheels. I had friends that worked in bike shops and lived in crappy apartments, but had bikes worth £8k+ and no money to go out.

On the other extreme you get tight wads like my brother who plays in a band with me, using a £100 Epi with 2 year old strings, yet earns £150k+ a year. Thankfully I talked him in to upgrading to a used PRS for £400 this month. 

Ultimately we're all just filling the empty void inside ourselves  

I totally agree with both these sentiments, really what does it matter if you are happy with your lot... whatever it is.

I can only think though that Harley Benton is a good thing as it seems they offer decent quality at very low prices and make it very accessible for anyone to take up a musical instrument.

The type of comments that I despise (and have seen on Fretboard) are the ones that put people down because they don't own a Gibson or Fender that's worth x thousand pounds and call them cheap (the people that is).

gringopig

.

prowla

ICBM said:

I've never seen a Harley Benton one with a broken neck, although that could be because no-one would think it was worth paying to have it repaired... but I don't think that's just it, people bring all sorts of cheap junk to be repaired until they're told that the cost far exceeds the value.

Any Gibson-style guitar with a maple neck, shallower head angle, or a proper scarf jointed headstock - where the head piece runs up into the neck, not one where the joint is around the E tuners - or a combination of those, is much stronger than a mahogany-neck Gibson.

I've played one HB and it had a neck like a tree-trunk; I think it would have taken a lot to break that! (Unfortunately, I also found it unplayable...)

darthed1981

gringopig said:

A cheap decent guitar like a Harley Benton can never be a bad thing. In fact a guitar has no purpose at all other than to make music and happiness.

Wis'd.

I think we all rather forget that at times, what you are playing with is not as important as how and what you play.

ICBM

prowla said:

I've played one HB and it had a neck like a tree-trunk; I think it would have taken a lot to break that! (Unfortunately, I also found it unplayable...)

Sounds like a Gibson “50s” neck...

(Which is not like a real Gibson neck from the 1950s.)

theimageofall

I recently purchased one as a ‘project’ guitar, so that I could develop my skills working on guitars like smoothing frets, soldering, electronics etc. I’d heard many good things about them being very good for the price and was willing to accept if I got a lemon as it would be fun working on it.

The truth is I didn’t have to do much to the body and frets. Very well put together with good fretwork (they needed a polish). Very heavy and plays really well (better than expected!).

I’ve upgraded the electronics and pickups but that was just to practice as they were functional.

Does it sound or feel as good as my Gibson R8 - no, but to me that is my ultimate guitar, so not many will! Does the R8 sound 10 times more expensive? No and once you add some gain (like I do) the differences get even narrower.

I’d buy another one and be comfortable gigging it and not be worried about leaving it back stage, like I would if I was gigging the Gibson. I’m over the brand snobbery thing at gigs and am far more concerned about the sound, but I completely understand why people want to be seen playing a bigger brand - I’ve been there as well, but now out the other side!

Personally, I think they are a good thing as they provide options for people.

TeleMaster

jpttaylor said:

Personally very much doubt that a Gibson built today will last you a lifetime - some of them are so bad that they get run over by bulldozers and diggers!

It's different strokes to different folks. I very much doubt you'll start seeing professional gigging musicians touring with Harley Bentons, but for the casual players that don't have £1k plus to drop on a Les Paul, I think they're great.

Of course it will. What do you think will happen to it? It’s not gonna disintegrate. It’s made of solid wood and metal. 

skullfunkerry

SlopeSoarer said:

The type of comments that I despise (and have seen on Fretboard) are the ones that put people down because they don't own a Gibson or Fender that's worth x thousand pounds and call them cheap (the people that is).

I’ve posted on here before about how much it used to piss me off after gigs when people would look “knowingly” at my EC1000 and say “Couldn’t afford a real Gibson, then?”  

scrumhalf

My first electric, an unsightly Satellite, cost me £30 in 1981. Roughly speaking, that's about £120 today. I learned to play the guitar on it (my first acoustic was equally poor) but I also had to learn some maintenance pretty quickly.

The difference in quality between that Satellite and what HB offer today is huge. Hum-matic pickups, tinfoil frets, extra-slippy tuners - I'm willing to bet that the equivalent price HB S-type has none of those.

If for no other reason than that HB (and others who offer similar quality) is a good thing.

soma1975

If you can't afford a better guitar they are an absolute Godsend. If you can afford a better guitar you shouldn't be turning your nose up at guitars not aimed at you. 

AustrianJohn

"Are brands like Harley Benton a good thing?"

Absolutely. I build my own guitars, but one of the guitars I gig is a €79 HB Tele kit (plus a few extras). Sounds great, plays very well. My mate in the band plays a HB 12 string acoustic and a HB 8 string tenor uke - both fabulous value for money. 

I wouldn't call them cheap as that has other connotations. I'd say inexpensive or good value.

Rabs

Yeah.. I think that each guitar is unique.. Even in the Asian factories they still do stuff by hand like the final neck sanding and setting the necks and bridge/nut setup.. Its those tiny differences that make each guitar feel slightly different to play.. And so it depends on the individual but every brand no matter the cost has "good" and "bad" guitars to be found.. you just have to go find them