Harley Benton Blues Harmonica Set

Afeter a long time, I decided to get back to practice my blues harmonica (my main instrument is elec.guitar) - I have bought some harley benton guitars and thought they're pretty decent... So, I decided go back to harmonica, and found this lovely box with the all 12 keys for a unbelievable price... I must confess I wasn't 100% confident as I found this "too cheap"... When it came home, it was a lovely surprise... a beautiful case, with a immaculate finish... and the harmonicas surprised me with a beautiful tone (to be honest I think they sound better than the "entry-level" Honners, and really close to the top ones)... I've checked with my electronic tuner, they were all in perfect pitch... and I asked myself the same question as when I bought my Harley Benton guitars: How can a cheap instrument delivers you this great quality, and sound better than many expensive ones? Give yourself a chance and be surprised!!! Now, low budget is not anymore a barrier for you to get an instrument with a good sound quality. Thank you Harley Benton!!!

I got this set mainly as a backup solution for the case of one of my regular main harps (Hohner Marine Band Deluxe) breaking during gigs and to have all different keys at hand for songwriting.

For that kind of purpose and budget, the set is pretty cool and the case is of a rather nice quality too, but you shouldn't get your hopes too high at this price level, as the harps unfortunately don't stand up against the competition in form of more expensive instruments.

They're pretty hard to play, especially when it comes to precise bendings. Sometimes reeds get stuck.

So if you know what you're doing and what to expect (or just want a nice case and take the cheapo haprs on top), go ahead an get it! If you're a beginner on the harp looking for something to start with, do yourself a favor and get a single blues harp around the same price, a decent harps makes learning much easier and a lot more fun!

I bought this set of Harley Benton harmonicas because I decided I wanted to add a harmonica section to a couple of songs we are working on.

None of us in the band are pro harmonica players by any stretch of the imagination - hence why I opted for this very budget option - but we have added a few sections into a number of songs and they sound fantastic for what we need.

We find them easy to handle and to get a half decent melody part out of and for harmonicas that work out costing something like £2 each they give quite a thick and rich sound when coming through the PA system.

Expert harmonica players would most likely find them poor imitations and probably wouldn't be looking in this price range anyway - but for a group of amateur harmonica players to add a couple of harmonica parts into songs they are easy to play and sound great.

And with the nice little case for the price, absolutely unbeatable for the price!

I bought this kit to learn how to play blues harp and I believe it was a great purchase - great value for the money and the best option out there for beginners to learn.

The best thing is definitely that you get all 12 halftones, so you can play along any song. That's a great way to practice.

The sound is good, given the price (for the same price you'd get two harps of another brand, here you get twelve), but if you'll start using it often you'll probably need to purchase better ones.

The response is good, it's easy to learn to bend the notes, cause they are quite thin.

The finish is not the best, has a bit of sharp edges - because of that my mustache always gets stuck between the plastic and the metal.