Harley Benton Beatbass VS Vintage Series

I make no claims to be a virtuoso bas player, but I need a bass for home recordings, and this one is fine for me. Just a couple of points:-

1. I would have expected to find a small piece of polystyrene under the bridge to protect the instrument in transit. I usually find I can loosen the string pressure just enough to slide the polystyrene out without completely dislodging the bridge. But instead with this bass there was a small piece of frayed cotton material which didn't slide out easily from under the bridge, but instead disintegrated into many threads, some of which stuck to the bottom of the bridge, and I had to remove the bridge completely to get rid of them all. Given my rubbish eyesight, it is difficult for me to see well enough to do the measuring to get the bridge back in the correct place.

2. I may be a simple soul, but I would have expected the volume switches on the instrument to be nearest to the thing to which they refer - in other words, volume 1 is right next to treble, and so I would have expected it to apply to treble, and volume 2 is nearest to bass, and so I would have expected it to apply to bass. But no, they are the other way round! I worked it out eventually, but have since found a review of this instrument on Youtube where the guy comments on this and says he thinks it's a mistake. If anyone from Thomann reads this review, could you please check this out? Is this a mistake, or a design feature? In any case, a bit of paper with this information on it would save the customer time in working it out, although, once you know, it's easy to remember.

Apart from these points, I like the sound of this bass, and am happy with it!

What a fun little bass! I plan to use it when my old arthritic hands are acting up. It's so light and the short scale is very comfortable. I would love to give it five stars across the board but there were a few unfortunate deficiencies.

PROS:
- overall, the look is lovely
- nice looking binding, hardware & sunburst effect on many surfaces, including sides and back of headstock
- the frets are finished nicely
- considering the thousands of kilometers it travelled from Germany to western Canada, the set-up was amazing: great action & intonation; even very close to being in tune
- the controls make serious changes to the sound

CONS;
- there are weird light markings long the edge of the fretboard, almost like someone sanded it a bit and took off the finish
- there are some tiny blemishes or uneven spots in the finish both on the wood and the chrome; not noticeable from any distance
- the only serious concern is that it ships with round-wound strings and I had to immediately put D'Addario flat-wounds on; the sound was pretty wonky otherwise

Despite the CONS, I think I will love playing this bass. The sound is unlike any other I've played. It definitely is not the sound for all purposes. It is a thumpy sound; there's basically no sustain. Having said that, the non-playing strings tend to ring a lot, especially on the "SOLO" setting. You need to be very good at muting if you switch from "RHYTHM".

All in all, I'd say this bass is all you'd need if you wanted to add that 60s sound to your repertoire.

Disclaimer: I don't consider myself an expert in instrument craftsmanship, this is just my view based on having casually owned a few guitars and basses in my life.

I am totally happy with this guitar. I have purchased a few guitars in my life new, or off the shelf at a standard guitar shop, and this is by far the best coming directly out of the box. I have not once had an issue with fret sharpness. I don't have the expertise to be able to tell if the frets are level but they look ok to me and fret buzz has been minimal.

Low points: intonation needs some work (tiny bit sharp on all strings at the 12th fret)

Tuners seem budget quality. Not too smooth turning, some inconsistency between tuners (some seem strong/more solid than others), but they're not properly rickety and no slipping I've noticed. I do have to tune up a little pretty much every use.

Pickups/sound I'm absolutely happy with. No neck issues. Mine is very straight and after a few months of ownership truss seems to be slowly becoming in need of a little loosening.

But this sounds and feels incredible. I have owned a comparable Rogue model in the past and this is a better instrument. The Rogue had some dead notes and shaky electronics. No problems like that here.

I could not find any flaws with this guitar concerning looks and build
The set up needed slight adjustment, with a tweak to the truss rod and bridge height , however this is normal practice for any guitar straight from the factory.
The intonation was spot on.
The bridge is movable and the saddles can be moved so it’s easily adjustable.
You do need to lift the bridge to remove the foam packing,
I would advise therefore marking its position with some tape to ensure it goes back in the same position, assuming that your instruments Intonation was set correct at the factory

Well it's a Beatles Paul bass isn't it? Yes, yes it is.
I was pleasantly surprised with the quality of the thing. It was almost in tune when it arrived - always a good sign - and the intonation was fine. And the latter is quite important because this has a floating bridge so good intonation meant no messing about for an hour trying to get in tune.
There was a bit of setting up though. Unlike most people I actually raised the action and adjusted the truss rod for some neck relief as (a) there was quite a bit of fret buzz and (b) the neck was incredibly straight. Some people may have been happy with the way it arrived though.
One almost drawback is that the bass arrives with typical Hofner style wiring. If you've never come across this before use of the search engine of your choice is advised as with the switches a certain way all you get is silence. Which is normal. Stupid but normal.
I would have preferred paying a little extra for this and getting flatwound strings. Again that's personal preference. Personally, I hate new strings, on guitar or bass. Horrible twangy screechy things. So a set of flatwounds is on their way to me.
It really is a good facsimile of a certain type of bass and what you get for what you pay is absolutely fantastic.
It's so good in fact, I'm going to get the fretless next.

This is a excellent looking bass, looks fantastic. The only down fall is the sound, the pick ups are poor and the volume and switches are not great. The bass is not up to standered for recording or playing live, but it does look excellent. I use this bass mainly to look at. This is the cheapest beatles bass on the market. I have 3 harley benton guitars, they are made cheap and cheerfully but they do the job. I continue to buy harley benton guitars because for the price they are unbeatable. They are not great guitars but for the price you cant argue. The are made well but are made from cheap materials.