Harley Benton SC-1000 SBK Progressive Line

This is my first guitar with active pickups. I'm a huge Metallica fan, and love the sound that Hetfield gets from his guitars with active pickups. I ordered the L-1000VB fully understanding it wouldn't compare to a much more expensive Hetfield model ESP guitar. With that being said, I was blown away when the guitar arrived.

The finish is a cool looking matte black. The pickups are also black, which gives it a very cool look when paired with the gold hardware. The flag inlays also add to the look of the guitar. So aesthetically it looks awesome.

The tuners on this guitar are sort of loose and imprecise. I was surprised because the chrome hardware on my other Harley Bentons was quite good. The guitar came with D'Adario strings which was a nice plus. Most guitars these days seem to come with terrible strings that you have to replace right away. The D'Adario's are nice. The guitar also came with a 9V battery, which is nice. Would suck to get the guitar and not be able to play it because you didn't have a battery laying around. The guitar is silent until you put the battery in the compartment in the back of the guitar. Like I said, I've never had a guitar with active pickups, so I don't know if all of them behave that way.

The sound quality is very good. The pickups seem to be quite hot, which I was very happy about. Hammer ons, pull offs and tapping are all very easy to do. Also get some nice sounding pinch harmonics and a nice chug when I palm mute the E string. Sounds very dark and heavy when tuned down.

Now the bad part:
I ordered my L-1000VB along with a L-450Plus. Both guitars were shipped in separate cardboard boxes. Then each box is loaded inside of another outer cardboard box. The only sort of padding was a couple of air bladders that were wedged in. This prevents the guitars from shifting, but offer very little in the way of protecting the guitars. Both the L-1000VB and L-450Plus arrived damaged.

The L-450 had a broken 3 way switch, and the L-1000VB has a crack on the corner of the headstock. It looks like it was dropped. It cracked the clearcoat and the wood underneath is splintered. It's really a pity, because I love this guitar. Thomann really needs to figure out a better way to ship these guitars so they are better protected. I've ordered guitars from China that are packaged in styrofoam and they arrive in pristine condition. Cardboard boxes simple don't offer any sort of protection. I have to send photos of the damage to the guitars, and the boxes to Thomann so they can investigate. Hopefully I can get a pristine L-1000VB once they review my photos.

The SC-1000 is an "LP-style" guitar that is the extremely reasonably priced intersection of expectations and qualities you want from a nice and simple but powerful guitar. The construction is solid and weighty, finish is durable, the features are exactly what you need (3-way pickup selector, neck volume, bridge volume, tone pot, and an output jack on the edge), and the active pickups are LOUD. Seriously, they're almost too loud, to the point of clipping my BOSS AC-3!

My only complaint about this guitar (other than a mild ding it received in transit halfway across the world, but that's a "road scar" in a sense so it's fine) is that the active pickups have a high enough power draw that I seem to go through nine volt batteries once a month or so. Perhaps I need to just buy better nine-volts! I may end up upgrading the pickups in the guitar to either more boutique active pickups such as Fishman Fluences or to a set of passive DiMarzios like my Music Man. But for now, for what I use the guitar for -- metal in D standard or drop C -- the actives are more than good enough.

This is a wonderful guitar that does everything you need it to and at a price point that will surprise you, and it can also serve as a perfectly good platform for modding electronics on in the future, thanks to its quality in construction.

if you are looking for a GREAT guitar for a super fair price with top notch features like Active pickups and a awesome design? Your search ends here, it doesn't get any better then this for the money.

Instead of buying an 800 or even more expensive guitar you could buy 4 Harley bentons and i have guitar on the ready for every tuning you like!

* Great pickups
* Fast neck and action
* Super cool looking
* Massive bang for buck

Read more about my journey towards this guitar below!

Personally i was looking for a 2nd guitar to play E standard with. I usually play allot of low and down tuned metal stuff and wanted a guitar for some more mainstream tuned songs.

My main guitar is a Schecter Hellraiser with a 81/85 pickup set. Recently it was fully serviced at the local guitar store so it's playing the best it can.

Not wanting to spend another 800 euro on a guitar and doing allot research this Harley Benton really got my attention. You see some negative reviews about the guitar here so you hope you are the lucky one when it arrives.

Out of the package the guitar looked great, except for one little dent on the bottom and it looked as if the paint got loose there and they tipped it with a marker pen. It's a small spot and hey not a 1k guitar so i thought what the hell let's play this thing.

Plugging it in the first thing i noticed was the massive gain the pickups have. Absolutely great, playing around a little with the guitar and tuning it i have to say it is an awesome guitar, it sounds great. The frets could use a little work maybe and the action could be lowered a little (action is user preference).

The tuners aren't as steady as the Gotoh's i had placed on my Schecter. So yeah every now and then you have to tune the guitar a little but that is like once every 3 days (yes i play everyday).

My next guitar will for sure be a Harley Benton again!

The guitar arrived quickly in the UK, was double boxed and unscathed from its journey. On opening the box I was pleased by the look and feel of the guitar.
Turned the guitar around and to my horror saw that the machine heads must have been installed by Stevie Wonder. Not one of the machine heads has been fixed to the headstock correctly - some are more crooked than others.
To put this right I would need to drill new fixing holes and rotate the machine heads leaving the current screw holes exposed.

I'm really not sure how Thomann can put a quality control check tag on the guitar like this.

Even at this price point I think this is unacceptable and something that should be easily rectified at the factory in China.

Will I keep the guitar ?
Probably - as I may follow others example and replace the machine heads with better quality ones anyway.
The rest of the guitar is fine - out of the box it plays quite well although frets are a little rough and need a good polish.
The neck is nice with no nasty jagged fret ends or dodgy binding to speak of. Intonation was pretty much spot on out of the box as was string height (for me).