Harley Benton HB-35 BK Vintage Series

I'm a semi-pro guitarist. I've been playing for 20 years. I do regular session work and several (big) live shows a month. I also teach and am Adviser to the Arts of a respected UK university. I hope my review comes with some credence.

This guitar is impressive.

The neck is comfortable and the Blackwood fret board is very handsome. The frets themselves are well seated and level, but were very rough. 10 minutes polishing the frets solved this and transformed the instrument. I'm sure there are lots of YouTube vids on how to do this - I used a kit I bought for polishing the headlamps of my car which consists of a sponge pad that attached to my drill!

The tuners are a little high ratio making it a little too easy to overshoot the mark. This may make stage tuning a little awkward for some. Nonetheless they are perfectly decent quality and hold tune fine.

The neck is nice and straight out of the box. With no adjustment to the truss or filing of frets I have lowered the bridge for a really low action with zero buzz. I have guitars I have spent four times the price on where this has not been possible without a pro set-up.

Lots of people will say 'whats the point of spending less than £200 on a guitar if you have to pay nearly £100 having it professional set up?!' - I disagree. I have paid £1000s for custom shop guitars that needed a pro set up, if not at the point of purchase a couple of years down the line once the road has taken its toll and my chops have made made valleys of the frets. Just because a setup is proportionally higher to the initial cost of the instrument, does not mean it is not worth doing if you want a really class act. In fact, I'd say that the shelf price obliges you do either do some work yourself or pay a pro. That said, after my fret polish, this guitar played great out of the box.

I was concerned that the pickups might not sound that great. If you are playing exposed Jazz you may want to opt for the HB35+. My understanding is that pickups on the + are a little more open sounding. But if, like me, you are grinding out rock and pop, you'll have no complaints here. I don't need coil tapping - I have other guitars if I want single coil twang.

Time will tell if the guitar is durable enough for the road. The components seem high quality enough and I got a bargain bundle with a hard case. At this price you can buy a new guitar after a couple of years of hard use anyway!

The overall finish is not perfect. The paint job has some (very minor) orange peel and there are some tiny flecks along the binding. There is also a small patch of rough work around on the fretboard at the last fret. None of these things affect the play-ability and are only noticeable from less than a few inches away in good light. If you want a family heirloom look elsewhere, but if you are looking for a good looking, great playing ES knock off that holds its own in the studio or the stage, this axe is a bargain!

*Just an update after a few months - still playing great. My band-mate brought his Gibson ES-345 along to a gig last weekend - I can honestly say my HB played better and sounded just as good.