Harley Benton MV-4JB Shell Pink

I’m an experienced professional musician and over the years have owned many high end basses (Warwick stage 2/fretless Corvette, USA P’s and J’s, etc) and my main bass is a 5 string Overwater. So I have perspective . But I still suffer from GAS and so I occasionally buy a cheaper bass for a bit of fun. I’ve got a couple of Sires which are great and I liked the look of this Harley Benton and thought I’d have a go for less than £200.
It’s really well made, plays exceptionally well and the tone is comparable with £1000 basses. Great for finger style and slap, don’t use a pick much but it seems good on that too. And the tone/volume controls enable a wide variety of tones from almost Precision to Jaco and quite a bit in between.
The neck is great, extremely smooth and easy to fly around. It’s fun, if you know what I mean, and makes you want to play more.
The saddles and truss rod only required a slight tweak to lower the action a bit to my preference. I can play fast on this bass the same way I can in my Overwater. I may change the strings as there’s a certain feel to them I’m not in love with, but they’re fine, I’m probably just a bit fussy.
They’ve even put fluorescent fret markers on the neck!
If I think back to my first bass in the late 70’s as a novice player (a terrible short scale Kay with an action you could fit an action man under) and what players can buy now for less than £200 is simply phenomenal.
The pink is really lovely. I’m putting a tortoiseshell pick guard on it and was thinking about new pickups, like a Bill Lawrence set, but actually why bother? They’re fine as they are.
Haven’t gigged with it as I mostly work in studios/pits, but in terms of weight it feels well balanced on the strap, no neck dive for me. It’s not light but I’m used to heavier basses and enjoy the solidity. What can I find wrong with it?
Er…..
To conclude: if you’ve got other basses, get one. If it’s your first bass, get one. If you want a decent bass to take out on gigs, without worrying, get 1 (or 2).
OK - I’m off to have another razz on it.

Honestly I couldn't be happier with this. The build quality is excellent, it plays and feels like a much more expensive instrument. I was expecting at least one or two imperfections or rough edges or frets but there was none of that. It's genuinely very well crafted and and just feels very high quality. The fretboard on mine needs a bit of lemon oil as it arrived quite dry but that is very easily remedied. Otherwise, this one didn't require any set up out of the box as the action and intonation were already good and the frets are all great. I love it.

Pedí 2 por el motivo del peso y fabricación... ¡Los 2 pesan 4.250!!

Encaje del mástil, casi perfecto, muy muy muy bien. Mucho mejor que el Squier 40TH JB y el 25TH Harley Benton...

Es un bajo precioso, cómodo y listo para modificar. Es lo que yo que estaba buscando. ¡Un buen mueble para hacerlo a mi gusto! ¡Y poner todos elementos tope de gama en el hardware y electrónica! ¡Dejando como ya lo hice con mi TRBX un gran bajo con gran sonido por menos de 700 euros!!

Despues de 6 meses:

Le cambie los afiandores por unos Schaller BM light. Ya que el agujero es bastante grande para los Gotoh 528. Ojala tenga HB en cuenta que muchos de sus instrumentos que estan genial en construccion, despiertan el deseo de mejorar el hardware.
En caso de los afiandores, hacer tamaños de agujeros para unos ultralight, algo bastante comun en mejoras de un jazz bass.

El puente tambien requiere un upgrade para poder tener una entonación por igual en todos los trastes del instrumento. Tambien algo normal y no obligatorio. Y aqui si hay medidas 5 tornillos tipo fender, mas otros 2 agujeros/tornillos, que en mi opinion sobran.

Y por supuesto, es un muy buen bajo, donde las mejoras merecen la pena, por su construcción.