Harley Benton R-458 BK Progressiv Series

I am from Russia, and for this price you cannot buy a NEW 8-string instrument of this quality and cheaper from us, even taking into account the UPS delivery, which is almost 50% of the cost of the guitar. The guitar cost 199 Euro with delivery to my city.

Appearance. It is beyond praise, it is modern, with a cutout for the left hand and your play will be comfortable even if you have large palms. Minimalistic design, strict and to the point.

Neck. It is comfortable and not difficult to switch from a 6-7 string instrument to this eight string instrument. Slimmer than Schecter C-8 deluxe
The amaranth onlay is finely sanded, but needs to be impregnated with lemon oil. After soaking her with lemon oil for the first time, she drank with thirst and I soaked her with the second portion. About an hour elapsed between the first and second oil impregnation. The second portion of the oil was absorbed more slowly and this was enough to remove the residues. I deliberately chose a fretboard made of amaranth, not maple, because when changing the frets, it will not need to be coated with a special impregnation, but it is enough to spread it with lemon oil. And the density of amaranth is higher than that of maple, which means that the sound transmission is better and closer to rosewood.
After a few days I had to grind down the sharp edges of the frets, as they came out, and I could injure my hand if I started playing. THIS HAPPENS WITH ALL NEW TOOLS EVEN FOR 3000-5000 euro AND THIS IS NOT A MINUS OF THIS TOOL. This is most likely to blame for my dry indoor climate, since I do not have a humidifier to create good humidity. To avoid this, store your guitar in a case, there it will not dry out as much.
The frets themselves are quite normal, I would call them Jumbo. At the same time I polished the frets to a shine. Bands and vibrato have become better tuned. Regular plastic fret markers. The tuners tend to get upset sometimes and I plan to replace them with GOTOH.
Body. The body is made of Basswood archtop with a nice cut near the neck-to-body attachment, the timbre block is shielded, the potentiometers are smooth. Painting, varnish, everything as on instruments is several times more expensive!
SOUND. This is what struck me the most. I have enough guitars and have something to compare with, so, the sound is wonderful, although I do not really like the single-coil sound on distortion. CLEAN WITHOUT ANY ALTERNATE SOUND PICKUP WONDERFUL !!!
The pickups suit me, but I still altered them, checking the coils and finding the beginning and end of the coils, the color scheme of the wires turned out to be like Di Marzio's. Having soldered the white and black wires, I made a serial circuit and sent it to a Push-pull, which I bought separately. Red (hot) to 3 way switch, Green + bare to ground wire. The result is a versatile instrument for any kind of music.
The scheme turned out as follows: Bridge, both neck and with Push-pull so separate coils. And although I made a change with this and lost the warranty, I got a great instrument for the low price, THANKS THOMANN, Very happy with the guitar!

First of all, I have to admit that it will be difficult to avoid striking personal notes (pun intended) when writing about this instrument. This is my “second first” guitar – an instrument that got me back to playing after several years of musical hiatus. Second, I write this short review after four years of usage which, I suppose, is more than enough to recognize the weak and strong points of this guitar.

Shipping and quality control
The shipping was very good and on time – no complaints here. The instrument arrived in nearly immaculate condition save for some microscopic crack at the headstock which does not bother me at all but may bother you so keep this in mind.

Setup
Out-of-the-box playability was OK, after changing the strings and a more careful setup the instrument feels fantastic. It was easy to get a low string action with little to no fret buzz and good intonation. However, the screws used in the instrument are horrible to operate. Fortunately, since I stick with the same string gauge and keep the instrument in stable temperature/humidity further adjustments have been very rare.
Tuners are fine. I know people complain about them, but I have had no problems whatsoever. Once tuned, the guitar stays in tune unless I do some crazy binds.

Tone
Most of the time I use the distorted tone, but occasionally switch to the clean channel and in both cases remain satisfied. Keep in mind though I am by no means a tone guy: if it djents I’m good (it does). Just type my name and “belphegor’s prime” or “przyjdz” on YT to hear the instrument in action.

Appearance
The axe looks fantastic. Despite its apparent simplicity, there are lots of aesthetically pleasing nuances to the body shape of this instrument. More importantly, it is very convenient to play, higher registers of the fretboard are easily accessible (I play seated holding guitar in classical position). The headstock is – as far as I checked reading other reviews – a matter of taste. I personally love it.

Overall
In sum, I wholeheartedly recommend this guitar. It is cheap, looks and plays fantastic, and offers numerous upgrade possibilities if you so desire.

Bought this expecting mediocre playability, poor intonation etc. and a weak scratchy tone like other ultra-cheap guitars I've owned, but it has exceeded all expectations and is exactly the extended range instrument I've been wishing for, despite having little money to spend.
Condition and initial impression:
Arrived extremely well-packaged, with the hex keys and even a free jack lead included. Upon opening, noted that there's not a single scuff, scratch, bump or crack on the instrument, and it was strung with strings that were heavy enough on the bottom end not to be too wobbly. It is also surprisingly light, the body weighs almost nothing and I'm sure most of the mass comes from the neck. This helps it balance really well on a strap.

Sound:
The humbuckers sound surprisingly rich when playing lead parts, only moderately worse than something like an Ibanez quantum pickup, but enjoyable to play and listen to nonetheless. I'd heard that these pickups give a somewhat muddy sounds on the lower strings, and this is true to some extent when distortion is applied, but EQ can largely sort this out. Clean sounds are pleasant and sparkly, the lower 2 strings buzz a little in chords sometimes but it's not much of an issue.

Setup:
Straight out of the box the action and intonation were fine, though I adjusted the action of the higher strings to preference. It was only somewhat out of tune, not enough to make the neck and strings temporarily unstable. It has held tune really well, despite the poor reputation for these tuners.

If you'd like an introductory 8 string without committing £400+, go for this one, it'll take you a long time to want to upgrade it.

So back in April.
I was chilling, watching a YouTube video and some guy calls to my house by ringing the doorbell.

So being the lazy mofo I am, I ignore the repeat ringing.
A few moments pass and I hear a huge crash from a window being smashed downstairs
I quickly realise that my house is being broken into and need to get ready to deal with it.

Looking around my room to procure an item I could use to defend myself with I had to opt to picking a guitar.
The guitar I chose was the Harley Benton 8 string guitar.
(Harley Benton R-458 BK Progressiv Series)

Armed with that beast, I charge downstairs and encounter the burglar breaking and entering.

At this point there's glass all over the floor and the burglar is making his way into the house.
Holding the 8 string guitar by the headstock I approach him and tell to get the F out.
The burglar threatened cut to me with a box cutter so bashed him across the head with 8 string!
He hit the ground like a sack of shit but he quickly got to his feet before I hit him again and jumped back out through the window and took off running!

I tried to cut him off by running out the front door but it was locked.
I ran back upstairs grabbed my keys and saw from my bedroom window
that he was getting away.
So instead of going downstairs and out the front door, I jump from the second story window still with the 8 string in hand!
At that moment the burglar looked back while I was mid free fall and look of horror on his face was priceless.
At that point he knew he was F'd!

So he took off running for his life down the street while I charged after him wielding the HB 8 string body raised overhead ready to whack him with it!

I managed to close the distance and I gave him a belt of the guitar across the head and temporarily stun him.

I got infront of him and that this point he brandishes his stanley blade knife and begins slashing at me with it!
Luckily I was able to maintain distance and parry all his attacks by jabbing him in the face repeatedly with the guitar.

Two minutes of knife/guitar duelling we find ourselves out in the middle of the road on a roundabout and all traffic has come to a halt as we continued fighting!
After many well placed strikes the burglar's head was beginning to look like 'Sloth' from 'The Goonies' movie.
Realising that I wasn't gonna give up the burglar then tried to make a get away by hijacking an articulated lorry which resulted in him getting punched straight in the face and falling out of the lorry cab!
He then proceeded to get into another car and threaten the driver telling them to drive.

My heart sank as I thought he was gonna get away but I just couldn't let that piece of shit get away with it, so I chased after the car in what would have looked like a low budget Terminator 2 chase scene!

Somehow I managed to keep up with the car and see where it was going!

The driver had pulled over and the scumbag got out and planned to hide in a barber shop to which he was quickly escorted off the premises because he had a head on him like a buckled mattress.
I ran into them and ask the to call the guards.

Meanwhile the moron went into a neighbouring café and sat down (I think that was the concussion beginning to set in!)

At this stage I had enough and I left the guitar outside and I went in and disarmed and pinned him in the café as staff and customers looked on in confusion but I calmly explained to everyone once I had in an anaconda choke.

The guards appeared in no time and arrested him and put him into the back of the car.

The moral of the story is:
Don't bring a knife to a guitar fight.

A Harley Benton guitar is a great guitar!!

I originally bought this guitar in the white color, and the quality impressed me so much that I decided to order this one so that I could have one to adjust and tweak to my liking and get some more practice doing mods. That was the plan, but when I got this beast there was so little work to do.

I'll preface this by saying that this is most likely NOT the guitar that I would take up on stage with me, but it is a perfectly capable and well-made instrument. I was anticipating having hours of work ahead of me to get this thing sounding like I wanted it to, but I was pleasantly surprised at how good it sounded right out of the box.

As for the downsides:
The tone knob seems to have no gradual control over the sound and changes sharply at around 5pm. The tuning heads are also a bit touchy and you'll find yourself hovering around notes on a tuner instead of hitting it dead on in the lower register of the instrument.

Like I said, I probably wouldn't be jamming with this bad boy on stage, but it's a great toy to have.

Come on guys ........ this is a dream that coming trew. Thoman Santa Claus Christmas all year long!!!! This baby was a dream for years...and now in my hands...the 8 string fantasy for only 155 $.
The range of the things you can do with such guitar its unlimited, the fatness of the sound when you go under the six strings its extremely rare, in the acoustic stuff you have a fantastic tone, strong but clean.....thing Metallica.....About the hard riffs its about the right fx and distortion to have clean sound even in the last bass Fa# string...the hall thing is to practise a lot with this beast just cause its something new and sometimes comfusing for the fingers that knows only the 6 string stuff.....after a waile this gonna be your favorite guitar.
Thanks Thoman for this opportunity in this mad price!!!!
Aias Lightning, lead singer (multinstrumentalist) & composer of Deadly Lightning & Sirius Calling metal bands.