Harley Benton RB-612CS Classic Series

I purchased this guitar based on the positive reviews on YouTube and on this site. I have been a loyal Thomann customer since 2006 and have been really impressed by the quality of their service and products. I own three other Harley Benton guitars. When I received the guitar it looked great, felt great and sounded ok. Now here is the catch and it is a big one, for me at least. It took me 4, yes I said 4 hours to change the strings. I finally gave up and removed the Casino tailpiece to gain access to how the string nuts actually fit in. Prior to removing it, you are partially blinded by the view by the Casino tailpiece. Every time you try to mount the string, it just falls out. I was out of my head trying to do so. When I did unmount the tail to reveal how it actually works it seemed apparent. However, I am not sure I will be able to change the strings without disassembling parts of the guitar you should NOT have to. I wrote Thomann asking for a solution and they said they are aware of this problem (not issue....but problem!)

I really want to like this guitar and do, except for this glaring problem. Other things like lowering the action, etc, I can deal with but this...

Here is what I wrote to Thomann:

Thank you! However, and I am not exaggerating, I spent 4 hours trying to figure out the best way to attach the strings. I finally had to remove the Casino tailpiece to gain access to the string ball end mounts. When it is attached you cannot see into where the string is entering, it often enters the wrong opening because you are blind in most cases as to where it is going. In viewing the Casino tailpiece I could finally see how it actually functions. That worked (FINALLY). I do NOT want to have to remove the tailpiece every time I change strings. I have been a loyal Thomann customer since 2006 and this is the first time I wanted to return a product and the only reason I am not doing so is I threw out the box. I cannot believe there isn’t an instruction sheet on how best to change the stings.

Is their a third party solution to change the string mount to 12 separate string holes or just a way to SEE where you are putting the strings. I have been stringing guitars for years, but 4 Hours???? I am so angry!!! This was my birthday gift and what a birthday it turned out to be!!!

Anyways, sorry for this rant, but it is what it is! Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

I received this guitar around 2? years ago, so this is a "test of time" review as well.

Starting from The price - very attractive.
I was looking for an electric 12 string guitar and given that it's a niche guitar, the other options available would cost 10 times as much as this one.

Looks - Great, the paint, finish and hardware (looks only) look great.

Sound - pickups are ok, but a 12 string guitar has its own sound, and an electric 12 string - even more, so if you're looking for that familiar sound - you'll get it from this guitar.

So far so good... until the setup and playability:

fretwork - one of the worst fret jobs I've ever seen. buzzing everywhere, uneven frets, untreated frets (no polishing so the frets does not feel smooth) - overall very very sloppy job. I spent a lot of time on leveling, recrowning and polishing the frets in order for this guitar to be playable. luckily - I'm well experienced in that field so I saved myself a lot of money. bear that in mind in case you need someone else to do your setups for you.

setup (out of the box) - terrible and unplayable. the one good thing I can say is that the guitar has a double action truss rod, which means the neck could be adjusted both ways (back bow vs. relief).
the nut also needed serious work, but I chose to replace it with my own custom brass nut.

Tuners - bad quality, they slip sometimes and generally do not hold tuning very well.

Electronics - so far, working great after 2? years. no noises, nothing falling apart (pots, jack etc.) so good job in that area.

The main reason for this lengthy review is because when I ordered this guitar, I was told that the delivery is delayed because my guitar is being inspected and set-up... so this is either a lie or the inspector doesn't know how to do his job...

Overall - for the price and sound - worth it, just keep in mind that you might have to spend more money on setup and tuners if you really intend to play this guitar on a regular basis.

I bought this knowing it was a budget 12 string guitar. It was half the price of the closest electric 12 string and less than a Tenth of the price of a Rickenbacker, so you get what you pay for right?
The good - The construction of this is very good. It's slightly neck heavy as you'd expect but not any problem. There are a few flaws on the finish but you'd have to look hard to find them. My nightmare would be if there were would be buzzes or rattles with the strings due to the budget nature. On mine though, there's not. It's nice and straight, the nut fitting is good. The neck is really playable, the tuning is very stable and I find myself picking it up to play it all the time.
The Bad - The pickup wiring failed almost straightaway. On inspecting behind the scratchplate, the soldering was really poor, the wiring was bad and the quality of the pots was terrible, even for a cheap guitar.
I kind of expected this though and I ended up replacing all the pots for CTS ones, tidied up the wiring and resoldered etc.
It was easy enough to do and the resulting jump in sound quality made it more than worthwhile. I had thought of replacing the Pickups too but actually they're not too bad for now and I can always do that in the future if necessary.
The ugly - In copying the Rickenbacker style control panel. The makers stuck two bits of plasticcy looking scratchplate material together roughly. It had sharp edges and looked bad. As I had the scratchplate off to fix the wiring anyway, I made an attempt to replace the scratchplate with a piece of white Pearliod material I had left over from a hobby project. The result turned out great and really improves the look of the guitar. It was easy to do and the guitar now looks and plays so well that people comment on it all the time.

I would recommend this guitar but would just put a warning that the wiring and quality of the pots is poor and you may have to rectify that.
Overall though, I'd buy one again. Even with the cost of parts etc this guitar is €150 cheaper than the nearest 12 string electric I've seen and I'm really happy with it.

For about 9 months, I had been watching numerous YT videos giving reviews of this instrument and decided to place an order. As I live in Canada, there was a relatively short wait of a less than a month. The price was $322 + $70 shipping + $70 for duty/taxes into Canada. The partially crushed box arrived with additional tape to seal up the torn portion. Happily, the inner box, containing the instrument was undamaged except for a minor indent where the headstock was. The instrument survived the 'round-the-world' (China-Germany-Canada) adventure intact with no damages, dings or scratches. However, I can only give this a 3-star rating for quality as the fret ends need some severe filing down and polishing; there was poor sanding on the fingerboard with very visible filing marks; and the neck had a severe banana-bow. I was able to get some direction for Thomann regarding neck adjustment as well as height adjustment for the pickups.
ON THE BRIGHT SIDE..... Once I adjusted the neck (very easy truss rod adjustment) and reset the neck pickup height, this item now plays very well. It has a great, bright sound with excellent tone. I don't play it through a lot of distortion and mainly use reverb with slight delay. Overall, I'm happy with my purchase and will shop this way again. Thanks Thomann.

I recently bought the RB-612CS from Thomann. To me it looks like Rickenbacker(ish) copy but for a tenth of the price of the real thing. I was living in hope that this guitar would at least be a reasonable instrument but didn't really expect great things...here's what I found.

Appearance - The guitars styling is great. Very 1960's. Very similar to a Rickenbacker, but with a slightly smaller body. 9/10

Build Quality - The guitar is well built. It feels solid (for a semi-hollow bodied instrument). Its components aren't the best, but you wouldn't expect fantastic electrics or hardware for the price. I'd say that the components are as good as those found in a guitar three times the price though. 8/10

Finish - The finish on the guitar is very good. However, I did have to return the first guitar I received from Thomann due to finish flaw issues. The replacement Thomann sent was finished to a much better standard. However, I do think that a little more could be done to improve the standard of finish inside the 'F' hole. The finish in here is quite crude and lets the overall appearance of the guitar down. This is a criticism I have not only with this Thomann model but also with other Thomann semi-hollows featuring a sound hole. It's a shame really that this is the case. 8/10

Set Up - Playability - You will have to play with the set up to get the best out of this guitar, but this is the case with 99% of guitars (even far more expensive makes and models) so this isn't a criticism. To be honest the first RB-612 Thomannn sent me was set up far better out of the box than the second one they sent, but as I mentioned earlier in this review the finish wasn't really acceptable on the first guitar.

The guitar stays in tune as well as any other 12 string I've played and once set up to my liking plays fine. 8/10

Sound - The guitar sounds like an electric 12 string. 8/10

Overall Verdict - Good value for money. If you want to try an electric 12 string without spending a lot of money then this is as good as it gets. The RB-612 looks good and is playable. If you want to record some 12 string this guitar will sound fine in any recording - people won't know that it's not a more expensive/overpriced guitar!

I think that in general terms the quality of finish on these guitars is probably quite variable and this is what can let it down. The components that make up the RB-612 are fine (to a standard of any mid-priced guitars) and will be consistent on every guitar that comes out of the factory, but the finish will be variable. The set up out of the box will also be variable, but you can alter this to suit and probably in most cases get something that you are happy with. 8/10

Service From Thomann - Excellent 10/10

I've had this in my possession now for a few days. My first impression was to send it back. It arrived with a the octave G string broken, and buzzing on open strings and at the first 5 or so frets. I decided to let it settle in for a bit, before I made a final decision. After a couple of days, I checked out the neck, and, sure enough, it was bent backward, thus causing the buzzing mentioned above. So, I adjusted the neck relief, which fixed that issue. The action was then a bit higher than it was, so I adjusted that, too. Now, it plays well, with no fret buzz, but it will need a fret leveling to get it to optimal playability, but for now, it is fine.

The tuners are a bit wonky, but once they get to pitch, they hold their tuning well enough.

The biggest hassle is getting the strings into their courses. I have large fingers, and it was very fiddly getting the replacement G octave string securely into place on the tail piece.

The sound is decent, and as this is just a 'flavour' for my recordings, will be just fine. It is a bit neck heavy, as one would expect.

In conclusion, I would say I am pleased with my purchase, as there is no way I could justify a real Rickenbacker. It may cost 1/10 the price of a real Ricky, but I don't think it is 1/10th the guitar.

Now, I am going to go play some Beatles, Byrds, and Tom Petty. :-)