Harley Benton R-458BK MultiScale

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4.4 / 5

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118 Reviews

Harley Benton R-458BK MultiScale
$179
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It's under € 200... BUT
7/8 of the time 01.06.2020
Not a bad guitar for a first time 8 stringer, but there are some serious flaws.
First the bad:
1. Several people have mentioned the pickups being garbage, and they are totally garbage. They have a bad buzz/hum when the guitar is not being played or when long-sustained notes are played. Anything low-low mid volume that you want to play will have this buzz/hum present. Luckily, EMG makes several 8 string pickups that easily fit this guitar, but for a pair it costs more than the guitar.
2. The tuners are bad! They don't wind up smoothly and evenly. Also, they lose tune easily with the thicker strings.
3. Here's the big one: the guitar I was sent has a raised fret on the 16th fret and it could've been easily caught in the inspection that Harley Benton claims was done. It causes a nasty fret buzz sound on most of the strings from the 13th fret to the 15th. I can see the raised fret looking down the neck and I wish so badly that somebody would've caught that before sending it to me, because i have to exchange it and hope that the next one doesn't have the fretbuzz.

The good:
1. It's an insanely good deal for the money and I have no clue how they make a profit!? for the neck and body alone, It would be worth the same price. Adding a set of high quality tuners and pickups would cost 2x the guitar, making it something that could be played at shows, band practice and on basic recordings.
2. The neck and body feel great, very smooth and easy to play. I've played mostly 7 strings and 8 string guitars, this one fit right in with any of them. The fanned fretboard is smoothly playable and the fret edges were fantastic. My only complaint was the raised fret and hopefully an exchange will fix this.
3. It's easy to set the guitar up to the right levels. Dialing in the specific adjustments took very little time. I like to try different tunings and string gauges, so this easy adjustment is important.

My advice: This guitar is excellent if you're new-intermediate and want to test the waters with 8 string. If you're a regular player-professional then be prepared for some disappointment and/or after-market work.
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F
Worth the money but prepare to invest into upgrades
Facel 20.02.2022
I was genuinely surprised in a good way that this guitar exists. For that price - it's a treasure. I mean find me a similar 8-string with that budget.

There are nuances with how it's made but nothing that breaks the experience. For example, there are cavities made for active pickups, but there are passive ones installed. There's no way to replace them with active ones as there's no battery compartment made. If you want to replace with passives - your options are limited as well because you'd have gaps that don't look pleasing. Probably the best fit here would be the Lace's Deathbar 4.0 or something similar (probably custom-made).

Pros:
-It's a multiscale guitar!
-Extremely comfortable to play
-Feels pretty solid
-Looks good

Cons:
-Stock pickups aren't good (there's like 0 clarity)
-Tuners aren't exactly bad, they do their job but I plan to replace them
-Requires extra work to improve grounding (the bridge isn't grounded because there's a layer of paint that prevents contact with a grounding wire)

In conclusion: If you're looking to buy one - be prepared to buy replacements for pickups. So some DIY skills are required. After that, you'll have a pretty solid axe without breaking a bank.
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pb
Meshuggah is calling
pink banana 04.10.2023
Firstly, to state the obvious, I bought this guitar mostly to be able to play Meshuggah.

I was very skeptical of HB, reading very mixed reviews about the brand but figured I won't lose much if it's very bad since it's so cheap.

Having only played 6-strings before, some things to note:
- It's pretty heavy - both weight and sound ;)
- Fanned frets required no getting used to, felt like any other guitar
- It is in fact a different instrument, I thought I could get away with having this as my only guitar but some 6 string songs become very hard to play

Pickups: I've read many bad reviews about the pickups, but after dialling in a good djent preset, the mud cleared out and I managed to get a good sound out of it. I'm using overdrive, compressor and noise gate on top of low gain and low bass on the panel (on a Boss Katana 2).

Cons:
- Tuners are very bad, they lose tune constantly, need to be replaced 100%
- Bad setup, bone dry fretboard & some rough frets (common and easily solvable issues)
- Loud grounding buzz (relatively easy fix)

Overall: After a good setup and amp settings, this guitar will amaze you. It chugs great, it looks great and costs basically nothing for what it is. If you have a calling towards 8-string music, this is a great guitar to have and you will barely notice its price.
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MM
Honestly, wow
ManyString Matt 19.08.2022
I have read a lot of reviews saying "for the price this is really good" I can't help but disagree, a more accurate statement would be " if I bought this for 3 times the price, it would be really good for the price". The problems I have seen other people comment on, I haven't really experienced.

The bad: Ok the pickups are a bit rubbish so plan to change them. The tuners, yeah they hold their tune but again replacing them is probably a good idea. Also, some new strings are in order.

The good: Where to start, oh yes, the neck, its main feature, no rod adjustment needed, the smallest amount of fret leveling, only on the last couple of frets. The intonation was perfect, the action was perfect, slight adjustment on the pickup height. After these small adjustments and polishing the frets I re-stringed it and was paying with a guitar that I would have been happy to pay £500 for.

So why did I get such a cheep 8 string, I actually wanted something cheep and rubbish for try and refinish, re-hardware and setup so see how good I can make a cheep guitar, but sadly I don't think I'll get this with this, it's already at a point where I wouldn't want to change anything apart from the pickups.
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T
Excellent entry point to the world of extended range Guitars
Trubshaw 05.05.2021
This was bought for my son who had a 6 string (Ibanez) and a 7 string (PRS), but he wanted to try an 8 string. This version had good reviews since the active pickups were dropped and passive were specified by Thomann. The guitar is well finished and set up for the price, much better than some from Ibanez I've had recently that had to go back because of the literally razor sharp fret ends. Not this Harley Benton R-458BK Fanfret. More than acceptable. The playability is good and the neck is very smooth which helps as it is about the width of a motorway - including the hard shoulders. My son loves it and had no complaints until he plugged it in - which bizarrely was quite a while after he got it. The guitar is quite resonant and for practice my son doesn't generally plug it in. But when we did we noticed that the high E string was a lot quieter than the rest. We have assumed that this is because the pickup doesn't quite sit underneath that string far enough. Because it's a fan fret? This is only noticeable when playing clean without compression - then you can hear the odd balance. When played filthy and with lots of compression (normal mode for an 8-string), it isn't a problem. No other problems, tuners are OK and tuning was maintained much better after fitting new Elixirs. Overall very pleased and the value for money is astonishing. We are planning on fitting a set of Tosin Abasi Fishman Fluence (yes, I know, much more than the price of the guitar but still cheap overall), so it will be interesting to see how that goes. Other people have commented favourably. Go for it: Not much to lose, so much to gain.
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A
Not Flawless, But Good Enough.
Anonymous 12.02.2023
Cool distortion sound, Big But not that HUGE scale(fit for me), and Passable design. It has small flaw in its Build but I strongly recommend it for Casual Djent/TechDeath Players.
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A
Solid and affordable
Anonymous 09.03.2023
If you’re looking for an affordable 8 string, this is the way to go.

Neck is real smooth and the frets are rounded so no work to be done there. Perfect glossy finish, good hardware and some decent enough pickups for its price.

Brilliant for djent and classical, would highly recommend!
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r
Good entry level 8 string
r6jbr 14.04.2023
This is a great guitar for getting into 8 strings. The pickups aren't great though and the tuners aren't much better but for the price you can't complain really. I'd recommend it to anyone that wants to get into playing one and doesn't want to spend much on one, or someone that wants a project to upgrade the pups, tuners, and electronics.
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A
Pretty good for a low budget 8 string
ALicBiEr 25.02.2022
the pickups are not the greatest but when you get these pickups for 200 euros and new elixir strings on that chunky boy it`s really good
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CL
the only cheapest. a good gateway ! to the 8string realm!
Chug Life 16.05.2023
my first 8string fanfret guitar!
solid deal for the price. expect some bits of issues here there but not a deal breaker. just set it to your preferred action and put on some new strings and your ready for some chuggin!
buff the fretboards with lemon oil first because they are too dry. this thing is suprisingly light weight. no neck dive is a plus and the neck feels good. a great platform for future mods just slap in some Fishmans and locking tuners.
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Harley Benton R-458BK MultiScale