Harley Benton MultiScale-8 QBB

I was looking for a fanned fret to add to the collection since I've already got a Schecter Omen 8.

PROS:
Not a bad guitar for the money, there weren't many gaps or machine marks, finish was nice. It was absolutely NOT set up, so I had to pay my local luthier almost another $100 for a complete set-up. Once it was properly set up, it plays like an absolute DREAM. I LOVE THE NECK! Holy crap the neck is SMOOTH for such a low priced guitar!

CONS:
I had one huge issue, would have given the "qualilty" rating a 5 stars instead of just a 3 star rating but the fretboard had a splintered part in it that I didn't feel or see until it caught my ring, not a hard repair to do yourself but it shouldn't have happened. Assuming this is just an isolated incident, so no real hard feelings towards Thomann. Again, this is the only con I could come up with and being such a simple fix, I'm not worried too much about it. I still love this guitar.

YES, I'd definitely order from these guys again! I'm very impressed with Thomann and the product they can offer at such low prices. I'm hoping they venture into the 9 string market soon! I'd definitely order a 9 string from these guys.

Overall for this price, you're getting a pretty good deal for an 8 string. The pickups are decent, a little bass heavy but not as bad as other $300 guitar pickups. The construction is nice and the guitar looks amazing.

However there are some obvious issues which isn't too surprising.

The nut slots are cut very thin, I put a pack of 11-80 DR strings on and about only two of them actually fit in the nut slots, the rest just sit on top of the nut. Which leads to strings going out of tune and fret buzz. Also the bottom corner of the nut by the e string was very sharp, I had to file it down, because it was so bad.
Almost all of the frets past the 12th need to be polished, they are very rough, although, at least there were no pointy fret ends.
The pegs that hold the strings in the back of the guitar aren't held stationary, they fall out when removing the string.
The neck is also very heavy. It's not THAT bad, but the body is extremely light which makes it somewhat unbalanced. Personally I'd take the whole guitar being heavier if it meant there was no neck dive.

But other than that, this is a very nice guitar for getting started on, or learning about 8 strings. I'd definitely recommend it, but just remember you might have to put in a little extra cash or work to fix up some things.

So I went out on a limb and tried this 8 string based on some internet reviews I had seen. I do enjoy the guitar there is no doubt about that; However, it has some issues.

1st The nut on the high side was very sharp when it arrived and uncomfortable to play. Nothing a file didn't fix but annoying nonetheless.

2nd There are some minor high spots in the finish on the back of the neck that are noticeable but don't really effect playing.

3rd Some minor tooling marks are visible on the fretboard but nothing I can feel while playing.

4th When restringing I had 6 out of the 8 Ferrules fall out and I had to glue them back in to hold them in place. This definitely shouldn't have happened, luckily I was able to remedy this.

Final thoughts are this is a Great first 8 string. It's absolutely a fine instrument to try out extended range and experiment with new style for a very tempting price. Please expect some minor issues and have that within your expectations and you should be very happy.

If you look for *cheap 8 string guitars* on google, more often than not you will get recommended Harley Benton and I can see why. That being said its not perfect.

The most noticable thing Is the finish. There are spots on the fingerboard bindings that looks very bad and on the headstock there are spots where it looks like there's no finish at all almost like bare wood. Another thing I will say is the tuners. Maybe that's a 8 string problem or a Harley benton design flaw but the tuning pegs are super close to each other and because they're on the treble side it can be a chore to tune at time. Staying on the topic of tuners this model has locking tuners which is nice, but whoever strung the guitar wrapped the strings around the tunning post even tho it has locking tuners rendering them almost useless, atleast until I do a proper restring.

Now for the positive. The frets work is actually pretty good. they're well seated, no sharp fret ends except maybe further down the fretboard where its slightly more noticable. The frets aren't properly polished but they're clean and shinny and ok smooth while doing bends. No scratchy pots, pickup selector works perfectly and even tho it has cheap pickups they honnestly dont sound that bad. I have a Jackson SCX7 with SD Nazgul and the HBZ's sound nearly has good but not quite. as far as output goes the HBZ pickups seems to be a little hotter than the Nazgul.
The guitar came out the box VERY playable. Good neck relief, action decently low and just a tiny bit fret buzz unplugged.

Overall I think this is a fantastic guitar for the price. If you've never tried an 8 string or fanned frets guitar I would highly recommend this IF you can live with its flaws.