Harley Benton R-457 Active SBK

Cheap guitar, we all know this. If looking at this you probably want to know if this 7 string is passable as such, i.e. playable.

First of all I would like to point out that this is a very nice guitar at heart. Looks and craftdwarfship is far above price range. It's an insane deal, you get a lot for the money.

Body: Cutaways are nice. I really like the shape both aesthetically and practically. Five stars. It is not heavy. No neck dive.

Woodwork is nice, no complaints, no toolmarks, no roughness.

Neck is OK, not 'sticky', shape is OK and does not feel cheap at all. Edge of fretboard is nicely rounded, no sharpness or frets poking out. Purely cosmetically: Some fret pockets are visible from the side under the lacquer, some are not.

Nut is made of nice material. I know this because I had to file the slots.

The fretboard material is VERY nice and smooth. Five stars.

Body paintwork w/o flaws. It does get shiny after a while where touched often (mine just under the strings). Paint is not fragile or thin. Lacquer on one spot on the neck is a bit rough though, but not a problem. Strap pins are nice and secure.

Tuners settle in after a while, and then keeps tuning well. No real issue there (but of course far from pro level). As with all cheap / old tuners you have to tune up, and tune down by tuning lower and then going up. Guitar now stays in tune OK, but it took a couple of weeks for it to settle, possibly due to crappy strings. But I will upgrade the tuners eventually.

Strings are absolute crap, feel cheap and soon gets gets lots of shiny dents. Please change these at your earliest convenience.

Bridge is OK, Hipshot style. Have made quite a few adjustments to it already, no problems noted. I may swap for a real Hipshot, but that can wait. String ferrules on the back are loose, easy fix with a drop of glue or two.

Pups are special. I happen to like them. Far above what I expected on this cheap guitar, and more than just 'usable', and by that I mean that they do not need to be swapped immediately. But they will be swapped in the future.

I see complaints that the pups are too loud.
Now, if only there were some kind of device, conveniently located on the front of the guitar, that could be used to lower the output...

Controls are absolutely fine. Good feel, do what they are supposed to. Electronics is OK, no hum or such. Battery located in soft pocket in main cavity, need to remove screws to change. Output jack is properly mounted, flush on the jack plate, which is nice looking.

BUT: Mine had some issues. I should have returned it, but I did not.

These issues are often to be expected on cheaper guitars, but somehow I thought Harley Benton would be different. Should also mention that I own two other HB:s that did not come with any of these issues, maybe this particular one slipped through their QA.
Anyhow:

1. Neck angle (really a problem with the angle of the top, since back and neck pocket were absolutely parallel). Strings could not be lowered properly. I could have shimmed, but ended up carving the neck pocket (with a very sharp scandi-knife and a lot of patience). Not something I would recommend, very fiddly to get straight, but turned out very nice. Body material is easy to carve.

2. Neck screws are too long. Body material is soft, so the neck screw ferrules digs into the wood when tightened, the screws even risk penetrating the fretboard. Added some shims under the screw ferrules. Easy fix, but for this soft wood there really should have been a neck plate instead of ferrules.

3. Uneven frets. I had to learn how to level frets, not something I really wanted to do. Not difficult, but scary and took a few hours and patience. Straight aluminum bar, double sided tape, 440 grit paper, then polishing. Turned out surprisingly well.

4. Nut was cut too high. I don't own nut files, proper ones cost more than half of this guitar, so I used needle files. Turned out OK. Might need more work.

Finally: It is now a proper guitar. String action ca 1.5mm on high E, ca 2mm on low B, and no buzz. Feels like a proper electric guitar that would cost a lot more money. Note that this is partly because the good quality of the guitar materials and parts used by Harley Benton.

First off the thing looks great, really nice matte black finish that looks and feels great, I tried to find imperfections and couldn't find any that I didn't make with my grubby hands, very easy to leave shiny marks.

The frets are all seated properly, no sprouting and no sharp edges, could use a light polish but that's to be expected. Full marks there!

The neck is pretty thin, my first thought was that it looked like a floorboard had been shaped into a neck but when I started to play it I was thankful for that thinness because it's wide but it's still really easy and comfortable to reach that B string (I'm a bassist primarily so that might not be true for guitar players looking to experiment with 7 strings, I find the B on this easier to play than the E on my 6 string) there is a pretty glossy finish on the back that I found kind of sticky, easy fix with some fine grit sandpaper or something like a scotchbrite pad. Mine arrived with a forward bow but that's an easy fix with truss rod adjustment. The only thing losing marks for this neck is the part where the headstock angles back is pretty thin, it's fine but I think for my peace of mind I might make a sort of volute that I can glue on to add a bit of support (that it probably doesn't need)

The bridge seems well made but the action on my guitar is still kind of high with the saddles all the way down so I may need to shim the neck to get it to where I want it, easy job and not something I mind doing on a guitar in this price range but might be an issue for beginners (though if you're brave enough to get a 7 as your first guitar you'll find the courage somewhere, it's a reversible mod anyway)

The pickups are... not great. They're REALLY hot, totally usable for really high gain playing, they aren't very articulate but the can be fun to bash out some of your favourite metal riffs (first thing i played on it was LoG walk with me in hell, the fun bit, not the hard bits haha) but they're damn near impossible to get clean tones out of, makes sense considering this is definitely a metal focused guitar but worth mentioning. I bought this with the intention of replacing the pickups anyway but I was hoping the stock pups would be a little better than they are, if I were more of a gear head I might be able to get them to sound much more usable but right now I feel like if a fly landed on the headstock I'd hear it through the amp which brings me to my last point, this thing is surprisingly resonant! I'm super impressed by how great it sounds unplugged, sustain is great too, I'm really happy with my purchase as I wanted to swap pickups anyway and I think this will sound great with my planned SD Invader in the bridge.

I would recommend this as an excellent mod platform or for someone who want's to start experimenting with extended range guitars, not so great for beginners (I wouldn't recommend 7 strings to a beginner anyway but this price makes it pretty attractive to new comers so worth mentioning)

First impression straight out of the box? its pretty impressive. The black satin finish (as used on a lot of HB guitars like the SC1000 progressive) looks amazing! Its that kind of detail that sets Harley Benton apart from other budget brand guitars. The finish on the neck is also super smooth! The fret ends are really sharp and rough but it can be easily sorted. I was really shocked by the poor finish of the actual frets because with no exaggeration, its like bending a string along sand paper!! Again, I will polish the frets and fix that but i expected better quality control. The tuning pegs are adequate and the nut is tidy and well cut unlike the other HB guitars I have purchased. The switch tip is now missing because it doesn't fit the pickup selector properly and I bent the shaft trying to force it on. I've ordered a new robust switch anyway because it comes with the usual cheap and tacky one. There is no battery holder for the active pickups and it's hidden away under the cover with the tone pots etc. I've fitted EMGs to several guitars and had to do the same so its no big deal for me.

The pickups?? The are very loud! too loud for me. For example, play this guitar through your amp with your favourite clean sound set up and it sounds like you are using an overdrive pedal! Even played with distortion its just way too much and can sound really muddy. Fortunately there's a volume control which if you turn it half way down will give you an halfway decent sound. The neck pickup isnt too bad to be honest (volume 50%) but the neck and bridge combined sounds really sweet (again volume down). I'm going to replace the pickups with some Fishman Fluence pickups but that's just a personal preference for me.
And why would I put such expensive pickups in to this guitar? well, its because i absolutely love it! It took minutes for me to lower the action without altering the truss rod to make it really playable. Its very well balanced and the extra string doesn't make the fret board ridiculously wide (probably comparable to an acoustic guitar?). It holds tune really well and the headstock is pretty tasteful compared to some 7 string guitars.

I know I've been critical about some aspects of this guitar but I've rated it at face value as to what to expect when you get it out of the box. You also have to consider the price? Absolute bargain! and the reason i'm spending money on it is because its a budget guitar that can be made in to an excellant guitar.

I was fortunate enough to have been able to play a Ge*****sic 7 string which to be honest, looked cheap and tacky and was basically very poor in comparision.

It's my first 7 st guitar but I've played some other 7 strings before (schecter, sgr, Ibanez) What I can say is that the fretboard is little bit dry, tuners are crappy, everytime I take the guitar I have to tune at least half step.
On the other hand, fretboard is really comfortable & thing (compared to SGR) tones are heavy. If you are planning to use mostly mellow and clean sound, you should avoid this guitar because this guitar is monster metal machine.
So I would recommend for metalheads, but prog guys, you should at least try & buy.