Harley Benton R-458BK MultiScale

For less than the price of a basic 6-string Squire, this guitar is amazing. If you're looking for an 8-string fanned-fret metal machine, this is seriously worth considering.

Electronics: This is the weak point, but for the price, this shouldn't be a surprise. It has dime pots and the tone control works like a switch. The neck pickup is extremely muddy with the low notes, but has a really nice round tone in the upper octave. The bridge pickup, however, is nice and bright across the whole sonic range. The switch and jack are noiseless and the soldering seems solid.

Neck: This has a shallow D neck similar to my Warwick corvette 6 string bass, which is a profile I really like. The fretwork is surprisingly nice, but not perfect. The ends are rounded and there are no sharp edges, similar to the work you find on a low-end Schecter. The frets could, however, have been polished up a little more, and I found a few that could be re-crowned. The rosewood on the fingerboard was BONE DRY when I got it and it took two applications of lemon oil to get it looking healthy and happy. The back of the neck is sealed, but not coated in lacquer--again, a choice I'm pleased with. The action was pretty good out of the box and it was 1/2 step out of tune. I like my action as low as possible, and a quick truss rod and saddle adjustment made it really easy to play. This is my first fanned-fret guitar, and I'm hooked. If it were in charge of design, I'd have left the neck free from fret markers, or done something more interesting, but the jumbo dots all on one side are fine. The strings it comes with are WAY too light for an 8 string. I put on some 11-80 NYXLs and they feel great. The nut is really sharp on the edges, but a fine file fixed that for me. Weirdly, the cuts in the nut for the low strings are not parallel to the fretboard - they are higher on the headstock side and lower on the fretboard side.

Body: It currently only comes in black and white, which is...boring. I have a white Schecter 7 string, so I opted for the all-black. The electronics cavity cover is, surprisingly, just as shiny as the body once you take the plastic off, which is a nice touch. The finish had some fine swirly scratches behind the bridge, but I plan to refinish it with color-shift paint, so I'm not worried about them. The body is quite small, thin, and light compared to my Schecter. The contours are really nice and it's no work at all to hit the 24th fret.

Final thoughts: This guitar is amazing for the money. The quality is incredible and it's nice to see that corners weren't cut with the neck, fretwork, and playability. Cheap electronics are to be expected, but they do the job and swapping them out is a relatively easy task. If you're considering an 8 string, this is a great choice.

I bought this guitar mostly for fun, but also to experiment with extended range tunings, during the Covid-19 lockdown for £138 inc shipping. It took a while to get here, but I wasn't disappointed!

Having read the other reviews here and from watching demos on You-Tube, I was expecting to have issues with pickups, frets and tuners, but it I may have got lucky with 2 out of 3.
Mine was almost playable, right out of the box (nearly in tune!) with only an adjustment to the intonation on 1 string and tightening the tuners required to get up and running.

Starting at the top:

Headstock
The pearlescent Harley Benton logo has been moved in-between the 4-a-side tuners; an improvement from previous models, where it was stuck at the very end.
The tuners are unbranded and non-locking but once tightened up should function well enough. Considering it's a fixed bridge guitar, you wouldn't expect tuning stability issues, but all the strings are angled at the nut and this caused my D string to stick slightly, so mine will need re-filed. (While I'm at it I may just replace it for a black graphite type nut, as the white one looks a bit out of place)
The strings that came on the guitar are pretty decent, although they are lighter than the 10s mentioned in the specification

Neck
The C-profile is comfortable with a fast non-stick, satin finish and a tidy scarf joint between the 1st and 3rd frets. Slight neck-relief helps with bends and stops the F# string from rattling off the frets. The fingerboard is excellent, but a little dry and will need oiled, with offset dot-markers (3 at the 24th fret but only 1 at the 12th). On my example, the fret-ends had been well filed, with no sharp edges and the frets were well levelled for a low, buzz-free action, without any dead spots.
On the down side however, after levelling, the frets have not been crowned or polished, leaving them feeling pretty rough and scratchy on the strings.

Body
The neck/body joint is tight and well constructed with 5 bolts and a rounded heel. Access to the top frets is unrestricted and comfortable.
The black gloss finish was pretty good, although I had a couple of tiny dents and scratches and you can make out a bit of orange peel if you hold it to the light.

Pick-ups/Electronics
A lot of people complained of muddy sounding pick-ups with this guitar. Looks like it has been addressed by ditching the pre-amp and going passive, because my example sounds great, on both clean and hi-gain settings.
The huge shielded control cavity seems empty considering it now only houses 1 500K volume, 1 tone control and 1 three-way selector, but I suppose it keeps the weight down and maybe adds some resonance.
I've yet to remove the pups, so I don't know if there's a connection available for a coil-tap, but if so, I'd change out the 3-way switch for a 5-way.

Bridge
On this guitar there are 8 individual bridges, each with their own intonation and string height adjustment. They are well rounded and comfortable for palm muting. Strings are routed through body and the ferrules are all standard guitar-string size, so if you want to use bass strings for the F# and B, you'll need to get do some modification.

All-in-all for the price, this a suprisingly playable guitar which could easily be made gig-able by tweaking the frets, nut and tuners. I know a lot of people are buying this as a cheap alternative to Ibanez/Jackson/Schecter and adding in custom pick-ups, which often cost more than the guitar itself. This might not be necessary any more to get a decent sound. Without the active electronics muddying everything up, with a bit of tweaking of your amp's EQ settings, this beast is capable of suprising tonal variety, from djent to djazz!

I?m working on a prog metal project for a friend and having read a few reviews of the Harley Benton R-458BK 8 string fanfret I decided to give one a go. So, to the unboxing. This guitar had travelled over 750 miles and straight out of the box it was almost in tune which was a remarkable thing in itself. The body was VERY shined and free of dents, blemishes and scratches. The finish on the back of the neck is very good too. As others have pointed out the fingerboard was bone dry but a couple of coats of oil and it?s all OK now. The neck is straight in all the right places and the intonation spot on. Just as good as you would get/expect on a guitar at three times the cost.

On to the hardware. Some reviewers had the saddles as being very sharp. As I tend to rest my hand on the bridge this was or slight concern but, HB seem to have listened and the saddles are now rounded and as smooth as a cashmere cod piece and very well made. The tuners are smooth in operation and hold there tuning very well. I bought this with a spare set of strings expecting them to be really poor, just bits of wire but how wrong was I. The supplied strings are of excellent quality, probably better than the ones I bought. So far so good!!!

Electronics. Pots and switches are smooth in operation and quiet. The pickups are active and? guess what??? They even supply it with a 9v battery. The battery sits in a secure enclosure not a lousy clip that I was expecting. Sound wise, the pickups are good and a decent range of sounds can be achieved with switching and dealing the tone knob.

OK, here?s the slightly negative bit that you were all probably waiting for. It has been observed by others that the frets are sharp and poorly finished on these guitars (probably true on other HB?s too). I experienced a slightly less that smooth finish in ONLY the top four frets (close to pickups) of the neck. It?s only a slight thing and can easily be remedied and only occurs high up the neck. I?m assuming the finishings done once the neck is attached to the body and access is limited due to the cutaways. It isn?t enough to put me off it as every other part of this guitar?s quality are WAY above the price you pay.

So in short, If you want to try an 8 string do not hesitate to give this one a go. at about £130 it is worth way more than the cost and is well worth getting. If you?ve never played a fanfret before it only took me about 15 mins to get used to. As I?d never played a eight string well, that will take a fair bit longer to get used to.

Finally, does it Djent??? Damn right it does!!!

Previamente había adquirido una guitarra de 7 cuerdas HB y esta ocasión pedí una de 8 y me hace pensar que la vez pasada me enviaron un B-stock porque esta guitarra no tiene defectos a comparación de la otra (espacios de cuerdas mal cortados en nut, trastes mega sucios, golpe en la parte de arriba...) así que definitivamente puedo ver la mejoría en esta, sigue siendo una guitarra ligera en mi opinión y cómoda para tocar incluso con manos pequeñas, sí evidentemente el cuello es ancho pero se siente cómodo, de nuevo la construcción y detalles mejor que la de 7 cuerdas fanfret que había pedido antes y el sonido ehh si, de nuevo las pastillas no son las mejores pero tampoco es para tanto, pedí también una sc-custom active y la ganancia de esas pastillas es tan exagerada que siento que estas dan menos lata jaja

Body: Looks and feels good. There is no imperfections out of the box. Apparently it was polished before the shipping, there was a little polish leftover behind the neck but it was ok. It was definitely not dirty or dusty as some youtubers complained earlier.

Neck: Plays and feels nice. I like the matching headstock and the shiny Harley Benton inlay, looks like pearl. Truss rod works fine and it was adjusted with a little relief. I made it flat and it works fine. Fretboard was a little dry, but not as bad as the early reviews on youtube.

Nut: Nut is slotted ok, string depth is good but there are some material leftovers around the strings. Tuning stability isn’t good, even though the nut is a relatively hard material (NuBone as advertised on the specs) it gets out of tune after bending the strings. Probably the slots are too narrow and the strings stuck there.

Machine Heads: I love the satin black colour. Tuning gear feels a little loose, sometimes I turn the tuner heads and nothing happens. Might be an issue related with the nut. Overall, its good.
Bridge: I like the design, feels comfortable, no sharp edges, easy to adjust.

Frets: My biggest complain would be the fret finishes. Don’t worry, Its not super bad, but could be better. Even though there are no fret sprouts, sharp edges or imperfections on the surface, I can feel the roughness when I am bending the strings. Definitely needs some sanding and polishing at some time.

Pickups: I find the pickups promising. Probably better than many other mid-range guitar pickups. There are some buzzing but not too bad. I think there is a conductive paint inside, but it picks up some noise. Luckily, pickup cavity can accommodate many other 8 string pickups so its open to upgrade.

*** Overall, I wasn’t expecting this much from a guitar at this price range. I am extremely pleased to have it.

Shipment arrived in about 5 days, super nice. Good packaging. Thanks Thomann!

The fit and finish is really good and everything works amazing out of the box. Needed a bit of neck relief and the action lowered. Fretwork is pretty level with only a couple high spots that were easy to take care of with some sandpaper. The frets were nicely cut and polished.

This is my first 8 string so I don't have much to compare it to, but I'm really enjoying playing it! The fan frets look amazing and didn't take any getting used to.

The pickups are very clean, full and warm sounding. I was expecting to change the pickups but they sound great so will probably leave them alone.

Aside from being generally apprehensive about ordering a guitar from Europe to Canada - I was pleasantly surprised by this entire transaction.
Ordered on a Wednesday, delivered on a Tuesday - the box spent one day with UPS/Customs, but was released by the end of day Monday.
The guitar box arrived in a larger, well-packed Thomann box, which itself received minimal bruising. The Harley Benton box inside was immaculate.
The guitar itself was well packed - guitar wrapped in a foam sheet, appropriate styrofoam bumpers kept it from getting knocked around.
The guitar is pristine!
While it arrived entirely out of tune, which I mention for disclosure, really no issue there for me - the finish shows no flaws, no scuffs or scratches or tool markings.
The frets are well done, no sharp ends - if anything, might need a polish.
The neck is smooth and straight and fretting is easy.
I bought this wanting to experience both multi-scale and expanded tonal range - this gives me everything I want.
The quality for the price paid is staggering and exceptional considering some of the guitars I've seen around locally.
Incredibly satisfied with this entire process.

Not only did it arrive pretty much exactly as it indicated on the website , but it got here to Canada in perfect shape!

While it did require a slight intonation and general setup tweak, it was more-or-less ready to rock out of the box.

Some have slagged the pickups and tuners, but I have found that for the price point, this is a stellar deal. The pickups aren't muddy, and while the tuners aren't ideal, they're not as sloppy as some would have you believe.

The fretwork is good, and I haven't encountered any fret-out anywhere on the neck. While I didn't require a lot of time to get accustomed to the fanfrets, the flat D-shape on the neck does take some time if you're more accustomed to baseball bat necks over Ibanez Wizard-style necks.

For anyone getting into 8-string/multiscale instruments, it's hard to find a better deal than this.