Harley Benton Nashville-Steel

I play for myself for my own pleasure and for anybody who drops by while I'm doing that.

I've never studied music, but I have a good ear and I've been doing it for 45 years.
I needed an extra guitar for practise and I wanted a slim acoustic (I've got a small

travelguitar, but it's awkward to handle) and this one is perfect.
I was truely surprised when I recieved it, I read some negative things about it, but I must

have been lucky. Mine isn't poorly made, I checked it well and truely and it's proper made,

nothing rattles inside it (or outside) and nothing needs improving. It really just sounds

great.., well, it's got a thin body so it doesn't sound very loud, but hey, it's got a jack

-plug, so if I want loud I can just plug it into an amplifier.., which I did, and that just

confirmed - it does sound great. Unplugged it sounds a bit jazzy (or maybe that's just in my

head), but it's got excellent sustain, probably the best of all of my now 8 guitars. Or

maybe it just inspires me to play it more jazz-like.
It's got a big head (everything being relative), so it drops forward when you wear it on a

strap over your shoulder and let go with your left hand. Some doesn't like that, but I guess

you can make a workaround for that if you want to (ie. sew/glue a rubberlike bit on the

inside of the strap right where it rests on you shoulder).
Only 4 stars at features is due to the knobs (treble, middle, bass, blend and vol.) I've got

big hands (everything still being relative) and though I can handle them I personally would

have preferred the four smaller and the vol. button a bit bigger, and please bear in mind

that I'm mostly gonna use this guitar as an acoustic. I guess I really don't want to say

anything negative about this guitar, I really like it. It's way better than I anticipated from what I read about it. It isn't exactly light as you may expect from a thin, acoustic guitar. It's not heavy, but not light either. The builders have a rather loose relationship to expected deliverance, so make up your mind a couple of months ahead if you decide you want one. I'd say it's worth the wait and worth the money.

I just decided that I'm gonna get me a small (very small) amplifier for this guitar, just to expand the possibilities. I guess it's gonna be the Vox Amplug 2 <a class="article link" href="vox_amplug_2_cabinet.htm">Vox Amplug 2 Cabinet</a>

This guitar is a good little player, but certainly has a few shortcomings with components and build quality.

The battery and output jack plate don't quite fit right. It's simply a matter of the plate being a different radius than the body so it sticks out on the sides. Functionally it's fine, aesthetically it's not good.

The bridge suffers the same problem. They've glued a flat bridge to an arched body. The corners of the bridge are just barely hanging on and will probably fail overtime.

There are a few areas where the binding has some flaws or could simply use more clean up. In the price range you can forgive some finish work, but there are places where the binding simply isn't set quite right or has a noticeable gap.

On the electronics side there's not a lot wrong functionally, but they're just not very good. The piezo pickup is pretty harsh sounding to my ear. This harshness takes over when the blend function is used and is easy to hear when blending even the slightest amount of signal from the piezo. The onboard tuner is a really nice feature, but it jumps around a lot. It'll get the job done, but sometimes takes just a little longer than it should.

It's not all bad things though, like I said it's been a good player for me.

Construction wise the neck is pretty good. It's comfortable, the frets aren't sharp, and it's tuners are smooth. The body looks great overall. With the exception of the few issues mentioned above it's put together pretty well.

For sounds it's pretty easy to get some great warm jazzy sounds from the lipstick pickup. It wakes up with an overdrive and gives you terrific blues tones. If you really go high gain you can get great rock sounds too. This is where it really shines. It won't give you a bunch of sparkle or twang. There are other guitars for that anyway. When I pick this up I always end up playing sounds that make me think dirt, wet, warm... and that's just fine.

I've enjoyed playing this guitar and will continue to do so.

About me: I've been playing guitar for almost 20 years. I am no pro, I play for myself in the comfort of my own home. I play this guitar through a small tube amp with a variety of pedals. I play with a pick and finger style depending on my mood.

Let’s get the bad out of the way first. The flame top is bad, really bad. It’s almost invisible unless in direct sunlight. I wish it was just a normal top. Next, the blend pot is backwards. When pointing at the neck pickup it voiced the piezo and vice versa. Finally, the “lipstick” pickup is clearly a Tele neck pickup in a tube.

The good is that it plays superbly, is well fitted and finished and sounds completely unique. It really is a voice not much else can offer. I like the mix about 70/30 in favour of the piezo through a Fender Twin model on a Helix with bit of reverb. Really lovely and addictive!

Just got this guitar. Waited three months for it to be restocked and after not much more than a week I see it?s out of stock again. Very popular or made in small batches?

I?m an amateur guitarist, songwriter and singer. I?ve been playing guitar and recording music for over 40 years and I cross between light rock, country, folk roots, blues and jazz. I have 14 other guitars. I even made my first guitars back in the 60s. I have four other Harley Bentons including a Ganjo all of which I?m very happy with (see below). I play folk clubs, open mics and also busk. So maybe you can understand why I bought this ?hybrid? guitar.

The guitar arrived with the top E string broken at around the bridge position? a bit odd?so not a good start? OK , it can happen but quality control ? After I put on a spare string my overall impression was of a very nice looking and well-made guitar with a good action, intonation and well finished frets.

The word ?solid? mahogany in the instrument description is a bit misleading? In fact it?s a quite light thin-line entirely hollow-body guitar made from solid rather than veneered mahogany apart from the veneer flame top and the Roseacre finger board (heat-treated maple). The images on the site suggest the back and neck are lacquered completely black. But in fact you can see the mahogany grain through the back. This reveals that the back is made from three edge-joined pieces and the neck from 2 longitudinally joined pieces. The bridge could be finished better where the strings emerge from the anchoring points. It?s just a bit rough but wouldn?t take much too much to smooth these on first change of strings.

But all this is a preamble. What does it sound like? Well without amplification, it?s what you?d expect for a thin-line guitar. Of course this all depends on the string choice but with what it?s fitted the tone is quite high end and bright and the volume is low but fine for practising and noodling around. I put this through a Marshall amp and a QTX-15 busking PA. I?m looking here for the range of tones on clean because quite frankly you can use pedals and effects boxes to get any almost sound off almost any electric guitar. With all the guitar tone settings on middle, the blend set all the way to the bridge piezo setting, it?s trebly and very bright with a pick but also when finger picking. This is of course what you?d expect but it?s way brighter than other electro acoustics I have with piezo pickups and similar strings. Move it all the way down to the lipstick single-coil neck pickup and the tone is much more muted and jazzy. It?s a typical single coil sound. A bit like a Strat neck pickup? Now the test of the blend? The treble end comes in very quickly as you move from lipstick to piezo. So I?d say to get the intermediate blend is not in the middle position but more like 85% to the lipstick side. The output is quite high too so it can easily drives a crunch sound when set on the amp or through a pedal. Just a thought : if fitted with a humbucker at the neck end then like my Epiphone EJ-160E/VS (not a hybrid) it could be much more distinctly bluesy and jazzy on the neck pickup and the blend range could be much more distinctive.

All in all this is a very nice guitar and as another reviewer has said you can?t buy a hybrid like a Godin or the Taylor without paying a lot lot more. This is a keeper for me and I?ll gig it around. Well done Thomann?.again!

My other Harley Benton?s are SC-550 Faded Tobacco, ST-62MN and the CLJ-503 CE NT (an electro acoustic). I also have the Ganjo (fitted with treble strings on 5 and 6...nice sound!