W
Bang for the buck at the highest level - period!
As seems to be the case - HB products really set bar high for other inexpensive musical products!
My initial idea was to buy a cheap bass and then maybe change the bridge, pickups and tuners just to polish it up a bit. Well, bridge and tuners are doing their job quite well so there isn't any critical reason to change them (as they don't arguably affect the tone as much as the rest of the parts anyway...). What about the pickups? They're staying! This bass has a really nice warm and balanced tone when both pickups are full (a bit of woolliness can be heard, though). Rolling the neck pickup back a hair opens the sound really nicely and harmonics ring pretty loud and clear. Soloing the bridge pickup does exactly what it should do. Sound is clear, melodic and harmonics loud and bright - without being harsh! Some electrical hiss is present when pickups are not in equal positions but that is kind of expected in any passive j-bass with single coil pickups.
So ultimately I ended up just changing the strings to D'Addario Chromes just to save the fingerboard and thats it!
Construction is in all respects on par with more expensive basses (not boutique of course...). At least on my bass the pau ferro fingerboard is a beautiful slab of wood, the maple neck has some really cool grain patterns on it and lastly the three piece ash body is very well joined and matched. Finishing is really good all around and the sunburst is pretty much flawless. Pickguard is cheap -ish, but by no means bad looking (I'm keeping it on place).
I don't really know what more one would get in terms of overall quality by spending double or even five times the money spent on this bass. Parts with more established names probably?
For those who care: I have about 30 years of experience playing high end and low end basses just to point out that although these are just my humble opinions they are not done without any knowledge of other basses, parts, pickups or electronics.
All in all an excellent buy and really good basic fretless bass!
*Edit after one year of playing:
So first things first - I still love this bass and keep playing it daily amidst my other basses.
Some fixing and modding has happened though. I ended up changing the pickups after a year to EMG J's with tried and true Vol, Vol, Tone -electronics. Woolliness of both pickups full has vanished and sound is more open. It wasn't all that bad to begin with, but definitely an upgrade worth doing. No electric hum anymore either when soloing the bridge pickup!
Finland is quite a hard climate for wooden instruments because of the changes in humidity during different seasons. After the first winter I went on to sand and polish the whole fretboard and applied new oil to it. Trimmed also a few fretmarker ends that had started sticking out on the treble side of the fingerboard. Now it's perfect and also keeps in tune amazingly well. And yes, still love this bass :)
My initial idea was to buy a cheap bass and then maybe change the bridge, pickups and tuners just to polish it up a bit. Well, bridge and tuners are doing their job quite well so there isn't any critical reason to change them (as they don't arguably affect the tone as much as the rest of the parts anyway...). What about the pickups? They're staying! This bass has a really nice warm and balanced tone when both pickups are full (a bit of woolliness can be heard, though). Rolling the neck pickup back a hair opens the sound really nicely and harmonics ring pretty loud and clear. Soloing the bridge pickup does exactly what it should do. Sound is clear, melodic and harmonics loud and bright - without being harsh! Some electrical hiss is present when pickups are not in equal positions but that is kind of expected in any passive j-bass with single coil pickups.
So ultimately I ended up just changing the strings to D'Addario Chromes just to save the fingerboard and thats it!
Construction is in all respects on par with more expensive basses (not boutique of course...). At least on my bass the pau ferro fingerboard is a beautiful slab of wood, the maple neck has some really cool grain patterns on it and lastly the three piece ash body is very well joined and matched. Finishing is really good all around and the sunburst is pretty much flawless. Pickguard is cheap -ish, but by no means bad looking (I'm keeping it on place).
I don't really know what more one would get in terms of overall quality by spending double or even five times the money spent on this bass. Parts with more established names probably?
For those who care: I have about 30 years of experience playing high end and low end basses just to point out that although these are just my humble opinions they are not done without any knowledge of other basses, parts, pickups or electronics.
All in all an excellent buy and really good basic fretless bass!
*Edit after one year of playing:
So first things first - I still love this bass and keep playing it daily amidst my other basses.
Some fixing and modding has happened though. I ended up changing the pickups after a year to EMG J's with tried and true Vol, Vol, Tone -electronics. Woolliness of both pickups full has vanished and sound is more open. It wasn't all that bad to begin with, but definitely an upgrade worth doing. No electric hum anymore either when soloing the bridge pickup!
Finland is quite a hard climate for wooden instruments because of the changes in humidity during different seasons. After the first winter I went on to sand and polish the whole fretboard and applied new oil to it. Trimmed also a few fretmarker ends that had started sticking out on the treble side of the fingerboard. Now it's perfect and also keeps in tune amazingly well. And yes, still love this bass :)
2
0
Raportoi ongelmasta
O
Great value instrument.
What a perfect instrument. Just a little heavy. It looks good, and the pickups are great. Not to mention the roundwound strings. Absolute dead-on fit for the tone of Jeff Ament. It feels great to play as well, and it's very fun to play. I'm addicted. It'll bite your fingers a while though, so the first few days will be tough because you have to play but it hurts. This bass actually made me learn to use my pinky which isn't that hard actually, and my pinky is very weak. It's different than what I'm used to, you generally need it here to stay in tune and because of the long scale. Had no problem migrating fron short-scale fretted. I didn't find this instrument to be hard to play at all, so don't be afraid.
Sorry for the wall of text, I don't know where to split the paragraphs at this time of day (3:30 am).
But great quality instrument, Harley Benton basses seem great from my experiences so far.
You will love it! I sure do.
Sorry for the wall of text, I don't know where to split the paragraphs at this time of day (3:30 am).
But great quality instrument, Harley Benton basses seem great from my experiences so far.
You will love it! I sure do.
0
0
Raportoi ongelmasta