Harley Benton MB-4 SB Deluxe Series

Well, the bass only costs in the neighbourhood of 100 EUR. And a review must of course take this into account. Here you get a okay beginner bass that can get you introduced to bass playing.

The bass' woodwork, finish, tuners and bridge are very well made and assembled. And after a bit of adjustment, I got the string action I want. The original strings are of a dubious nature - and should be replaced asap. The pickups are screwed so tightly into the body wood that they can hardly be adjusted. And I did not manage to get the equality between the strings volume that a good bass should have. The electronics make a lot of noise - and the possibility of turning up or down one of the 2 pickup coils is almost non-existent, because the noise becomes unbearably loud. If the bass is to be made playable for me (considering myself as an experienced bass player), I will have to change electronics and most likely also pickups.

I would have preferred that Harley Benton had upgraded electronics and possibly the pickups, so I should not start by upgrading the bass to make it playable. It might also make life easier for beginners who may not know what it takes for upgrades.

Okay, first I have no clue how a ray should sound other then what others told me. From this I expected a mid oriented sound. I was ready to go fiddle with the knobs on my amp, a gallien krueger which has a pretty bright modern tone to it. Surprise, it has plenty of low end and a nice up mid zing. I bought this one with the idea of changing the pickup for something a bit more quality.
No need really it sounds fine the way it is.

Next looks, one word damn. It looks just awesome, good paintjob, nice shine, some wood showing through. Finish otherwise is excellent, no sharp edges to the frets whatsoever. Better then my premium Ibanez. Tuners are good, bit heavy, but no glitches and hold the tune well. I changed the strings straight away, but there weren’t even that terrible. Knobs are fine and work well, volume is also not a problem, no issue that is only passive where the original is active. It is plenty loud.

The neck is solid, I mean baseball bat solid, no slim jazzneck this, this is lumberjack country. But again, good and straight as an arrow.

Okay, the lesser points, the action. It was setup by thomann already so it was ready to play straight from the box. Just little tweaking on the intonation which was a tad sharp at the twelfth fret and then I started on the action, I play fingerstyle and can go with very low action. Ever since I got that Ibanez SR1820 I know what good action feels like and I try to setup all my basses that low.
This just won’t take it, it is a nice action, no worries, but not as light as my ibby or my jazzbass.
Any lower and I get fretbuzz, I don't mind a little, I try to get the marcus miller fret overdrive. When you dig deep and hard it may buzz just a little to get that gritty metallic zing into the tone without disturbing the actual tone itself.

So this baby makes you work a bit harder, sort of goes with the thick neck and the weight. That really surprised me, it a basswood body, which usually are light, my washburn weighted almost nothing, this axe is quite hefty. Most basses these days are light, I learned it on a 70’s precision, those weigh a ton. This one is not that heavy, but none of the modern feathery feel.
Get a good strap!
Which for me really works for a ray clone. It is supposed to be the bad boy of Leo Fenders creations and well it certainly feels like it.

So yeah, points on the finish and the hardware which are pretty amazing for this money, lost a star on the action.

But overall, I cannot say anything else then I am very, very impressed by this amount of niceness for this little money.
I bought it for two reasons, I simply wanted a ray clone, and this is great for those bit more dodgy places where you cant store your stuff properly. I do love it, the looks alone are killer, that big fat pickup alone, man.. Have yet to try it in the band setting. I’m sure it will be alright. This was my first HB experience and I already figured if I was starting just now I would get a couple of them.
Do put good strings on it though. I put Daddario’s balanced tension nickels on it and those work great. And it comes with a cord, also amazing.

Update, opened it, wanted to upgrade the pots, one thing I always do wiht budget guitars, the pots are good, but a serious set of quality pots is always better.
Those are mini's. And the tone pot position wont allow for a regular pot. I dont want to take the router and the cover plate is quite narrow so it'll be a tricky job.
Still sounds fantastic, still might change out the pick-up. but it is great as it comes, no worries. Gonna try it in the band setting this friday.

And that friday came and went. This axe makes you work, offcourse it does not have arange of sounds build in like active bases wiht eq's. so it is amp fiddling. Had not brough my own amp, this thing is heavey enough. So it was some peavy which I did not like very much.
I think it really has a ray sound, it has plenty of deep low guts and a good punchy mid section and a tad of that jazzy honk on the higher octaves which I like, if you stick a little fiddly loop between that driving thunder.
the weight, the thick neck and the fact it has no easy reserve in the pick. some basses have more of a volume thing that goes up quite a bit if you dig in a little harder. This is just loud no matter how you play, if you dig deeper it starts driving the amp. I really should put this over a tube amp so I can play those tubes. But this means when ever you want to underline something or make the fill stick out you give it the beans. So you work hard and it growls and sings. Or should I say stings?

Again a stupendous good piece of kit for little money, I think this will give the lower tier sterlings a kick in the backside with ease.
our drummer already was pushing me to use this all the time.