Harley Benton Baritone CLG-414BCE NT

69

Baritone Acoustic Guitar with Pickup

  • Style: Grand Auditorium with Cutaway Electric Style
  • Top: Selected solid spruce
  • Body: Walnut
  • Neck: Okoume
  • Fretboard: Pau Ferro
  • Dot fretboard inlays
  • Scalloped X-Bracing
  • Scale length: 685.70 mm
  • Nut width: 45 mm
  • Bone nut
  • 20 Frets
  • Bridge: Pau Ferro
  • Black bindings
  • Chrome plated die-cast tuners
  • Fishman Sonicore pickup
  • Fishman Presys-II preamp system with built-in tuner
  • Colour: Natural, high gloss
  • Matching case: Art.122212 (not included)
Available since August 2018
Item number 436640
Sales Unit 1 piece(s)
B-Stock from $279 available
$299
The shipping costs are calculated on the checkout page.
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Exploring new depths

Size doesn't ALWAYS matter - but sometimes it absolutely does, and the Harley Benton CL Baritone CLG-414CE NT WN with its long scale length and dark, bassy sound is a case in point. Strung with the correct strings, this guitar can easily be tuned a perfect fourth below standard guitar tuning without losing any of its punchiness, and its "Auditorium" body shape means it is still easy to play. The guitar additionally features a solid spruce top, which delivers a bright and dynamic tone that can also be amplified to full effect thanks to the onboard Fishman pickup system.

Long neck, heavy strings

The linchpin of the Harley Benton Baritone CLG-414BCE NT's bright, full sound is the guitar's top and specially adapted bracing. In addition to its comfortable "Auditorium" shape, the walnut body also features a cutaway to provide improved access to the upper registers, and the neck - with a scale length of 68cm (26.7") - is long enough for the guitar to be tuned down to B. To this end, it also comes strung with a set of strings that include a .070" gauge bottom string. The CLG-414BCE NT's built-in Fishman Presys-II preamp system also features an integrated tuner, so the guitar can be amplified without having to worry about anything sounding "off".

Light and easy to play

Unlike electric baritone guitars, the Harley Benton Baritone CLG-414BCE NT is an instrument that is destined to only be played clean - whether it is amplified or unplugged. This guitar's full-sounding, bright tone makes it particularly good as an instrument for song accompaniment without other instruments, even for less trained vocalists. At the same time, the guitar's compact body size makes it surprisingly easy to handle for a baritone instrument, and players will quickly get used to the heavier strings and be able to play the CLG-414BCE NT like a guitar in standard tuning.

About Harley Benton

Since 1998, the Harley Benton brand has been catering for the needs of numerous guitarists and bassists. In addition to an extensive range of stringed instruments, Thomann's house brand also offers a wide choice of amplifiers, speakers, effect pedals, and other accessories. In total, the range includes over 1,500 products. Built by established names in the industry, all Harley Benton products combine quality and reliability at attractive and affordable prices. The continuous expansion of the range ensures that Harley Benton always provides new, exciting, and innovative products that keep players perfectly in tune with the musical world, day after day.

One for the specialists

The Harley Benton Baritone CLG-414BCE NT will be particularly attractive to experienced guitarists who are already familiar with the instrument and looking for new sounds - and who know what they want. The guitar's rich tonal characteristics will lend an impressive sound to song accompaniments and finger-picked passages, and outstanding vocal talents are not strictly essential (though of course they won't do any harm!). And last but not least: The CLG-414BCE NT will also find favour with fans of heavier musical styles. "Death Metal unplugged" might not be a thing just yet, but it's surely just a matter of time!

69 Customer ratings

4.6 / 5

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59 Reviews

H
Great Baritone Acoustic
Hazz 04.02.2021
I was looking for an affordable yet good quality baritone acoustic guitar looking to play some Pat Metheny esque experimental tunes, and came across this gem of an instrument.
The build is brilliant, a solid well constructed body with a strong neck to deal with the high tensions involved in the heavy gauge strings. The sound that comes from the body acoustically, is very rich, deep and resonant. The sound coming from the output jack does well to replicate this but no less sounds a bit thinner and to be expected from a DI recording. A bit of EQ and this guitar will sound amazing. The actual inbuilt pre-amp has a very clear, easy to use tuner and the EQ controls onboard are very simple and easy to use.
I have since restrung this guitar with my own custom gauge strings and, despite being wildly different gauges to normal baritones, the guitar still brings out the life of the strings and tone.

Overall a very well built, great sounding, easy to use guitar. Would highly recommend to anyone wishing to branch out into baritone guitars.
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Worst HB guitar ever!
CodeGator 23.04.2022
Tl;Dr The bad news is, this is, by far, the worst Harley Benton guitar I've ever purchased. The good news is, even with problems, this guitar is still an amazing value and a really nice guitar. I would buy it again.

So, now I'll explain. When I got the guitar, from Thomann, it had some fretwork that needed to be done. Probably nothing the average person would have cared about, but, I'm picky that way. I spent about an hour dressing the fret edges. They were not smooth, like I like them to be. I also fixed a fret that was a tiny bit too high - not so high that it buzzed, but, high enough that it felt off, to me. That hour would likely have cost me an additional $90, if I had sent the work to my favorite guitar tech. Luckily, it was something I could handle myself. Still, even adding that hypothetical cost to the purchase price of the guitar, it remains an amazing bargain!

Next, I am super picky about tuners. I don't care for the tuners that came with this guitar. They just feel wrong, to me. As a result, I'll likely replace them, at some point, with Grover tuners. So let's see, that's probably an additional $50 for that.

So, even with the Luthier costs, and the replacement tuner costs, the guitar is still cheaper than the Guild baritone acoustic I was going to purchase, before I discovered this one. Not bad!

Now let's talk about what's good with this guitar. The finish is absolutely beautiful! I've purchased 5 instruments from Harley Benton, so far, and they have all been a joy to look at. The sound of the guitar is every bit as dark and emotional as one might expect, from a baritone guitar. I do think an 8 string option, for this guitar, might be good, as it might brighten up the overall sound. That's not a knock on the instrument, it's just the reality of baritone guitars. The fishman electronics are perfect. The instruments sounds very natural when playing through my PA.

All in all, I'm very happy with my purchase. The only reason I didn't give it 5 stars were the two small issues with the frets. Overall, it's a lovely, playable, enjoyable guitar that I plan to spend many happy hours with.

Thank you, Harley Benton, for making a quality guitar within my price range. Thank you Thomann, for shipping it to me, from Germany, to Oklahoma, USA, in two days - that's not a typo, two days. Crazy!
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M
Great to unwind with - singing, songwriting, socialising
MrMFo 02.03.2024
I’ve been trying for ages to find an instrument that works with my voice (slightly lower than a tenor) because standard acoustics don’t quite sit right. Finding baritones to try out is tricky, so I took a punt and without ever playing one, ordered this with a view to trying it out and sending it back if I didn’t like it. Not a chance!

The low B string offers fabulous tone and resonance whilst at the other end, the cutaway allows easy access to higher notes, well into the range of a standard acoustic that just serve to emphasise the strength of the lows. This is why the guitar makes sense to me; Capo on 5 and it’s a standard guitar. When many acoustic players never go past the 5th fret anyway, the cutaway takes this guitar past that point in addition to giving you the lows.

Out of the box, the guitar was generally well set up, but I think the nut needs a small amount of modification and the strings would benefit from an upgrade - the F# had a kink in it. The machine heads are adequate and make sense at this price point, but the otherwise excellent build quality makes upgrading these really worthwhile. The tuner is very accurate, which it needs to be - the dark tones mean that being just a fraction out of tune sounds really weird. The long scale length definitely suits longer fingers, but I haven’t found the heavier strings harder to play - you don’t need to press to hard on the strings; that just makes them go sharp. Finger style is a joy due to the slightly wider string placement, whilst strumming adds real weight and strength, giving a great dynamic range unplugged.

The frets probably need a small tweak - there’s a tiny amount of buzz on the low B string at the A, but by the time this thing has been put through a full setup, I think it will be unputdownable. Overall, sits well with my top end mahogany Tanglewood, midrange Taylor and Mex Fender Tele - at a third of the price of any of them.
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A surprise and a delight - highly recommended
GiddyKipper 12.07.2020
I'm not sure what exactly I was expecting, but this HB guitar exceeded all my expectations by a mile. The build quality and finish are superb, the volume and projection achieved by the slightly deeper body are excellent, with the increased space inside the guitar allowing for the lower notes (down to low B) to really ring, and the neck's slightly longer scale length and slim profile make it extremely playable. This guitar encourages you to try things you may not have thought of before, and does not disappoint in any way. The Fishman pickup is also suprisingly accurate at rendering an authentic acoustic sound, and that's the icing on the cake. Five stars all round!
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