Is Harley Benton a good or bad thing?

rossi

Most cheap guitars these days come alive with a fret level and nut job and new strings  .Its the bit expensive guitars have and cheap ones dont .The transformation is often remarkable .I do my own  fret levels so can  do it on cheapos that I resell .

hollywoodrox

skullfunkerry said:

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?”  

Ec1000 is a great guitar 

oneinoneout

Thumbs up here. 

I own two, a fusion one with a roasted maple neck, and a tele with P90s. 
Total cost of the pair were about £500, with the fusion one being the bulk of that cost and I think one of HBs most expensive models at about £360. 

They are both great guitars I enjoy playing. My other ‘main’ guitar is a 15 year old MIM Strat, but I’ve owned much more expensive instruments in the past. I don’t need anything more fancy/capitalist than what I have, but could afford to spend more on instruments if I wanted to. 

90% of the time I play at home, and what I have meets my needs. 

HB is probably the brand Chapman should have been, but it’s a ‘house’ brand rather than mans brand, which is the main difference. When I started playing all beginner guitars were cheap and nasty Squire bullets at best. Now you can get a genuinely decent LP/PRS/tele for not much money. 

If if you then chose to spend more money on the real thing that’s then fine, but it’s perfectly possible to get decent instruments cheaply now, which is only a good thing. 

darthed1981

hollywoodrox said:

skullfunkerry said:

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?”  

Ec1000 is a great guitar 

Probably somewhat better than any Gibson, if we are all honest.

ICBM

skullfunkerry said:

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?”  

Look on the bright side, someone once said that to me when I used a PRS . And I've heard the same about people using Suhr, Anderson etc high-end Fender-type guitars too.

I'd probably get the same sort of thing about my Aria. But I don't play it because I can't afford a Fender - it's a very special model to me and it cost me an absolute fortune to import it - I could easily have bought a Fender for the same money.

It takes a lot less talent to read the brand name on a guitar than it does to play one properly...

rossi

In the early  60's a small group of lads and girls at a dance  enthused that I had a guitar just like Hanks .It was a red  Hofner V3 but I didnt actually  disillusion them.Just call  it Fenders Hofner range .

Henrytwang

rossi said:

In the early  60's a small group of lads and girls at a dance  enthused that I had a guitar just like Hanks .It was a red  Hofner V3 but I didnt actually  disillusion them.Just call  it Fenders Hofner range .

Back in the early 60s I had a Hofner Colorama. It didn’t sound that great but I was playing at Holiday Camps 6 nights a week and it got well and truly knocked about but it never let me down. Only time will tell how robust Harley Benton guitars are but I suspect that most of them are bought for home use only and should be okay in that environment.

darthed1981

Henrytwang said:

Only time will tell how robust Harley Benton guitars are but I suspect that most of them are bought for home use only and should be okay in that environment.

Not being funny, but they are bits of wood and metal stuck together with glue and bolts, I'd assume any modern glue to be vastly superior to anything used in the 50s (hide glue hahahaha etc. etc.)?  Some of the hardware might need replacing over time, or even before you start, but even in regular gigging, they will probably last as long as anything else.

Sure, specs wise the average HB is easily top-trumped by a £1000 guitar, but then you'd expect that.

Actually no reason you can't have both.  I own an HB and a Gibson, and a Fender, will probably buy a Chapman sometime soon.  All make perfectly playable guitars, but sometimes something a bit different (in my case this amazing thing - https://m.thomann.de/gb/harley_benton_victory_plus_bk_vintage_series.htm ) can be great.

Rabs

darthed1981 said:

Henrytwang said:

Only time will tell how robust Harley Benton guitars are but I suspect that most of them are bought for home use only and should be okay in that environment.

Not being funny, but they are bits of wood and metal stuck together with glue and bolts, I'd assume any modern glue to be vastly superior to anything used in the 50s (hide glue hahahaha etc. etc.)?  

Sorry I cant help myself 

darthed1981

Rabs said:

darthed1981 said:

Henrytwang said:

Only time will tell how robust Harley Benton guitars are but I suspect that most of them are bought for home use only and should be okay in that environment.

Not being funny, but they are bits of wood and metal stuck together with glue and bolts, I'd assume any modern glue to be vastly superior to anything used in the 50s (hide glue hahahaha etc. etc.)?  

Sorry I cant help myself 

Yup that's the one!

Rabs

darthed1981 said:

Rabs said:

darthed1981 said:

Henrytwang said:

Only time will tell how robust Harley Benton guitars are but I suspect that most of them are bought for home use only and should be okay in that environment.

Not being funny, but they are bits of wood and metal stuck together with glue and bolts, I'd assume any modern glue to be vastly superior to anything used in the 50s (hide glue hahahaha etc. etc.)?  

Yup that's the one!

And somehow its still funny to me   

simonhpieman

Sweet jesus, I've just scrolled through their ENTIRE range on my phone. Took over half an hour! They sell a LOT of different stuff!

Out of that it turns out I opened 19 things "in a new window" which were of at least a passing interest to me:

Pedal boards (how different can it be to a pedaltrain? And the pouch on the outside of the bag is actually better than a PT so there), flat patch cables, power daisy chain (paid £30 for a one-spot I think so this looks a bargain at sub €10), the talbox complete with wooden sides, the odd pedal...

To be honest the guitars leave me mostly cold, even at the price. I new window'd a couple of P90 guitars just for the craic as I'm potentially in that market at the moment but doubt I'd buy one.

The soundhole Duncan Woody style pickups look cool too.

A pro bassist mate of mine just got one of their 50s style Ps for €108 or whatever it is. Felt like some of the slightly old satin neck Squiers, sounded fine to me on the gig.

rossi

simonhpieman said:

, sounded fine to me on the gig.

The bottom line .It doesnt have to last 100 years or go up in value in its case  or be drooled at by armchair  enthusiasts .It just has to do its job .

57Deluxe

you have to understand that there are not hundreds of Chinese guitar manufacturers but there are hundreds of resellers. If you are going to invest heavily in manufacturing to produce say a 335 style guitar, then you probably undertaking contracts for big players already...

Jetsam1

57Deluxe said:

you have to understand that there are not hundreds of Chinese guitar manufacturers but there are hundreds of resellers. If you are going to invest heavily in manufacturing to produce say a 335 style guitar, then you probably undertaking contracts for big players already...

I would be surprised if they aren't just variations of many other brands production from the same few factories. I think it is a good thing overall with the caveats of environment etc. I have been tempted a few times by the LP types.