Harley Benton R-458BK MultiScale

For less than the price of a basic 6-string Squire, this guitar is amazing. If you're looking for an 8-string fanned-fret metal machine, this is seriously worth considering.

Electronics: This is the weak point, but for the price, this shouldn't be a surprise. It has dime pots and the tone control works like a switch. The neck pickup is extremely muddy with the low notes, but has a really nice round tone in the upper octave. The bridge pickup, however, is nice and bright across the whole sonic range. The switch and jack are noiseless and the soldering seems solid.

Neck: This has a shallow D neck similar to my Warwick corvette 6 string bass, which is a profile I really like. The fretwork is surprisingly nice, but not perfect. The ends are rounded and there are no sharp edges, similar to the work you find on a low-end Schecter. The frets could, however, have been polished up a little more, and I found a few that could be re-crowned. The rosewood on the fingerboard was BONE DRY when I got it and it took two applications of lemon oil to get it looking healthy and happy. The back of the neck is sealed, but not coated in lacquer--again, a choice I'm pleased with. The action was pretty good out of the box and it was 1/2 step out of tune. I like my action as low as possible, and a quick truss rod and saddle adjustment made it really easy to play. This is my first fanned-fret guitar, and I'm hooked. If it were in charge of design, I'd have left the neck free from fret markers, or done something more interesting, but the jumbo dots all on one side are fine. The strings it comes with are WAY too light for an 8 string. I put on some 11-80 NYXLs and they feel great. The nut is really sharp on the edges, but a fine file fixed that for me. Weirdly, the cuts in the nut for the low strings are not parallel to the fretboard - they are higher on the headstock side and lower on the fretboard side.

Body: It currently only comes in black and white, which is...boring. I have a white Schecter 7 string, so I opted for the all-black. The electronics cavity cover is, surprisingly, just as shiny as the body once you take the plastic off, which is a nice touch. The finish had some fine swirly scratches behind the bridge, but I plan to refinish it with color-shift paint, so I'm not worried about them. The body is quite small, thin, and light compared to my Schecter. The contours are really nice and it's no work at all to hit the 24th fret.

Final thoughts: This guitar is amazing for the money. The quality is incredible and it's nice to see that corners weren't cut with the neck, fretwork, and playability. Cheap electronics are to be expected, but they do the job and swapping them out is a relatively easy task. If you're considering an 8 string, this is a great choice.

I bought this guitar mostly for fun, but also to experiment with extended range tunings, during the Covid-19 lockdown for £138 inc shipping. It took a while to get here, but I wasn't disappointed!

Having read the other reviews here and from watching demos on You-Tube, I was expecting to have issues with pickups, frets and tuners, but it I may have got lucky with 2 out of 3.
Mine was almost playable, right out of the box (nearly in tune!) with only an adjustment to the intonation on 1 string and tightening the tuners required to get up and running.

Starting at the top:

Headstock
The pearlescent Harley Benton logo has been moved in-between the 4-a-side tuners; an improvement from previous models, where it was stuck at the very end.
The tuners are unbranded and non-locking but once tightened up should function well enough. Considering it's a fixed bridge guitar, you wouldn't expect tuning stability issues, but all the strings are angled at the nut and this caused my D string to stick slightly, so mine will need re-filed. (While I'm at it I may just replace it for a black graphite type nut, as the white one looks a bit out of place)
The strings that came on the guitar are pretty decent, although they are lighter than the 10s mentioned in the specification

Neck
The C-profile is comfortable with a fast non-stick, satin finish and a tidy scarf joint between the 1st and 3rd frets. Slight neck-relief helps with bends and stops the F# string from rattling off the frets. The fingerboard is excellent, but a little dry and will need oiled, with offset dot-markers (3 at the 24th fret but only 1 at the 12th). On my example, the fret-ends had been well filed, with no sharp edges and the frets were well levelled for a low, buzz-free action, without any dead spots.
On the down side however, after levelling, the frets have not been crowned or polished, leaving them feeling pretty rough and scratchy on the strings.

Body
The neck/body joint is tight and well constructed with 5 bolts and a rounded heel. Access to the top frets is unrestricted and comfortable.
The black gloss finish was pretty good, although I had a couple of tiny dents and scratches and you can make out a bit of orange peel if you hold it to the light.

Pick-ups/Electronics
A lot of people complained of muddy sounding pick-ups with this guitar. Looks like it has been addressed by ditching the pre-amp and going passive, because my example sounds great, on both clean and hi-gain settings.
The huge shielded control cavity seems empty considering it now only houses 1 500K volume, 1 tone control and 1 three-way selector, but I suppose it keeps the weight down and maybe adds some resonance.
I've yet to remove the pups, so I don't know if there's a connection available for a coil-tap, but if so, I'd change out the 3-way switch for a 5-way.

Bridge
On this guitar there are 8 individual bridges, each with their own intonation and string height adjustment. They are well rounded and comfortable for palm muting. Strings are routed through body and the ferrules are all standard guitar-string size, so if you want to use bass strings for the F# and B, you'll need to get do some modification.

All-in-all for the price, this a suprisingly playable guitar which could easily be made gig-able by tweaking the frets, nut and tuners. I know a lot of people are buying this as a cheap alternative to Ibanez/Jackson/Schecter and adding in custom pick-ups, which often cost more than the guitar itself. This might not be necessary any more to get a decent sound. Without the active electronics muddying everything up, with a bit of tweaking of your amp's EQ settings, this beast is capable of suprising tonal variety, from djent to djazz!

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.

I?m working on a prog metal project for a friend and having read a few reviews of the Harley Benton R-458BK 8 string fanfret I decided to give one a go. So, to the unboxing. This guitar had travelled over 750 miles and straight out of the box it was almost in tune which was a remarkable thing in itself. The body was VERY shined and free of dents, blemishes and scratches. The finish on the back of the neck is very good too. As others have pointed out the fingerboard was bone dry but a couple of coats of oil and it?s all OK now. The neck is straight in all the right places and the intonation spot on. Just as good as you would get/expect on a guitar at three times the cost.

On to the hardware. Some reviewers had the saddles as being very sharp. As I tend to rest my hand on the bridge this was or slight concern but, HB seem to have listened and the saddles are now rounded and as smooth as a cashmere cod piece and very well made. The tuners are smooth in operation and hold there tuning very well. I bought this with a spare set of strings expecting them to be really poor, just bits of wire but how wrong was I. The supplied strings are of excellent quality, probably better than the ones I bought. So far so good!!!

Electronics. Pots and switches are smooth in operation and quiet. The pickups are active and? guess what??? They even supply it with a 9v battery. The battery sits in a secure enclosure not a lousy clip that I was expecting. Sound wise, the pickups are good and a decent range of sounds can be achieved with switching and dealing the tone knob.

OK, here?s the slightly negative bit that you were all probably waiting for. It has been observed by others that the frets are sharp and poorly finished on these guitars (probably true on other HB?s too). I experienced a slightly less that smooth finish in ONLY the top four frets (close to pickups) of the neck. It?s only a slight thing and can easily be remedied and only occurs high up the neck. I?m assuming the finishings done once the neck is attached to the body and access is limited due to the cutaways. It isn?t enough to put me off it as every other part of this guitar?s quality are WAY above the price you pay.

So in short, If you want to try an 8 string do not hesitate to give this one a go. at about £130 it is worth way more than the cost and is well worth getting. If you?ve never played a fanfret before it only took me about 15 mins to get used to. As I?d never played a eight string well, that will take a fair bit longer to get used to.

Finally, does it Djent??? Damn right it does!!!

Use Case:
I would consider this guitar a novelty for an intermediate player. I personally wouldn't give one of these to a beginner because it will give them false impressions of how an 8 string/multiscale instrument can be utilized. I think it would mislead a beginner in their early learnings. I believe anyone who considers themselves proficient at playing guitar would laugh at the quality of the instrument, and happily invest the few hundred extra to buy into multiscale/8 strings at a level with more reliable hardware and construction. That leaves a small window, in my opinion, of this being appropriate only for intermediate players that have no reason to buy an instrument with these features but want to try it out.

It would generally apply to anyone that this is an excellent feature set for the price, but I would highly recommend that if you're a beginner looking for a new guitar to buy something that's known to be reliable and quality built. In the long run it will serve you better than this. Advanced/professional players looking for a deal, this is probably going to need a full hardware/electronics upgrade(pending preference and ears..) and a setup at the end of it all so put aside a few extra hundred if you really think you want this...or check out established manufactures offerings in the same price range and have a more sound investment...

My purchase:
My example showed up in a timely manner even with them constantly being out of stock. Packaging was on par with most guitar shipments in my experience. Out of the box there was small cosmetic blemishes to the paint on the body and the headstock. One of the height adjustment screws on one of the saddles was mangled for some reason. Besides the bare metal being unsightly on a black saddle/instrument, it was just broken hardware on a brand new instrument. The nut is not shaped to the neck. Not sure if they're just mass manufactured and no one takes the 5 minutes to file them to shape or if my example is just a lemon. None of the frets were seated completely/correctly along the entire neck. The neck pocket wasn't cut well. Fair bit of play on either side left by an uneven cut, presumably by a dull bit. Both potentiometers on had bent shafts on arrival. One of the knobs had an anodizing(or whatever the process may be) error and was just silver across a significant section of it. None of the string ferrules are secured in the body in any fashion. They fall out as soon as string tension is released.

All of that said, the fretwork was rather impressive for an instrument in this price range and the setup out of the box isn't bad. As others noted, there is little to no fret-bite, the edges of the fretboard have a small roll and were dressed very nicely for this price range. Given the issues with the neck pocket, nut and damaged saddle, they somehow managed to get the strings on straight and get a respectably low action out of it. However, my example arrived with dead strings and frets that needed to be cleaned. Appeared as if it had been sitting around for sometime. Makes me wonder about the stocking issues they 'seem' to have.... The neck has a very comfortable 'slim D' style carve. Very reminiscent of an ibanez or a legator but with just a bit more shoulder meat. All of the listed specs are true in my findings. Wood, measurements, construction, etc. For my expectations the tuners aren't going to cut it but I'm sure some people would say ''they're fine." I imagine a gentle fingered bedroom player might get away with using the tuners but I like to chug/bend/squeal and these things tuners cant take it. The bridge seems functional for now but I can tell you its made from pretty cheap alloy looking at my damaged saddle..time will tell how it stands up. Not looking forward to dealing with upgrading the individual bridge pieces(praying they copied someone's screw pattern). I think others have covered the pickups pretty well but I'll chip in that with enough equipment/tone shaping options, I think the pickups can be usable enough to noodle *while you wait for fluences to show up* lol..

Customer service:
The issues I had with my example were eventually addressed by thomann after a very lengthy email conversation and several phone calls. They offered to engage in a return/exchange process but they also confirmed my shipment was not b-stock and didnt seem to think the damage or hardware issues were irregular or anything to worry about. It took a significant amount of contact to get in touch with someone who understood the issues.

Pros:
-feature set at price point(that's why we're all here GASing right?)
-acceptable upgrade platform if that's your thing

Cons:
-poor construction
-damaged on arrival
-lack luster, low quality hardware
-obvious QC issues

Conclusion:
While I imagine this review sounds fairly negative. I will add that I have already purchased another one(but the white with maple fretboard). I am curious to further assess the variation in QC and will update my review (and/or amend a note to the review on the listing for the white model) once it arrives.

I wish to make it clear that I am only satisfied with the product and have purchased another one because I am capable of doing the work to it myself and because I have reasonable expectations for the limitations of the instrument. Also, the second one is for a relative that is also capable of doing the work himself and has reasonable expectations for the instrument. For the money, its a multiscale neck and a body already punched out for you and the quality is just good enough that if you know how to put the work into it, it can be an acceptable practice instrument or multiscale/8 string entry point.

All of this is my opinion and surely there's variation in units. Please take it all with a grain of salt.

TL;DR If the money isn't a thing to you, this things pretty cool for small bucks. If this purchase needs to make sense and be a sound investment, keep shopping. Its a fun novelty instrument and can be a passable practice instrument with a good bit of work.

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.

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.

Previamente había adquirido una guitarra de 7 cuerdas HB y esta ocasión pedí una de 8 y me hace pensar que la vez pasada me enviaron un B-stock porque esta guitarra no tiene defectos a comparación de la otra (espacios de cuerdas mal cortados en nut, trastes mega sucios, golpe en la parte de arriba...) así que definitivamente puedo ver la mejoría en esta, sigue siendo una guitarra ligera en mi opinión y cómoda para tocar incluso con manos pequeñas, sí evidentemente el cuello es ancho pero se siente cómodo, de nuevo la construcción y detalles mejor que la de 7 cuerdas fanfret que había pedido antes y el sonido ehh si, de nuevo las pastillas no son las mejores pero tampoco es para tanto, pedí también una sc-custom active y la ganancia de esas pastillas es tan exagerada que siento que estas dan menos lata jaja

Body: Looks and feels good. There is no imperfections out of the box. Apparently it was polished before the shipping, there was a little polish leftover behind the neck but it was ok. It was definitely not dirty or dusty as some youtubers complained earlier.

Neck: Plays and feels nice. I like the matching headstock and the shiny Harley Benton inlay, looks like pearl. Truss rod works fine and it was adjusted with a little relief. I made it flat and it works fine. Fretboard was a little dry, but not as bad as the early reviews on youtube.

Nut: Nut is slotted ok, string depth is good but there are some material leftovers around the strings. Tuning stability isn’t good, even though the nut is a relatively hard material (NuBone as advertised on the specs) it gets out of tune after bending the strings. Probably the slots are too narrow and the strings stuck there.

Machine Heads: I love the satin black colour. Tuning gear feels a little loose, sometimes I turn the tuner heads and nothing happens. Might be an issue related with the nut. Overall, its good.
Bridge: I like the design, feels comfortable, no sharp edges, easy to adjust.

Frets: My biggest complain would be the fret finishes. Don’t worry, Its not super bad, but could be better. Even though there are no fret sprouts, sharp edges or imperfections on the surface, I can feel the roughness when I am bending the strings. Definitely needs some sanding and polishing at some time.

Pickups: I find the pickups promising. Probably better than many other mid-range guitar pickups. There are some buzzing but not too bad. I think there is a conductive paint inside, but it picks up some noise. Luckily, pickup cavity can accommodate many other 8 string pickups so its open to upgrade.

*** Overall, I wasn’t expecting this much from a guitar at this price range. I am extremely pleased to have it.

Shipment arrived in about 5 days, super nice. Good packaging. Thanks Thomann!

The fit and finish is really good and everything works amazing out of the box. Needed a bit of neck relief and the action lowered. Fretwork is pretty level with only a couple high spots that were easy to take care of with some sandpaper. The frets were nicely cut and polished.

This is my first 8 string so I don't have much to compare it to, but I'm really enjoying playing it! The fan frets look amazing and didn't take any getting used to.

The pickups are very clean, full and warm sounding. I was expecting to change the pickups but they sound great so will probably leave them alone.