Harley Benton GuitarBass VS Vintage Series

I have been a fan of "Bass VI" instruments since the 90's when I first tried out a Japanese "F" brand reissue at a local shop (still kicking myself for not buying it). A few years ago I indulged myself and bought the "S" brand "vintage modified" version, and aside from a couple VERY minor complaints it is damned near perfect. When I saw Harley Benton did their own take on this unique, inspiring instrument, I had to try it. And I am glad I did!

Aside from a slightly trimmed-down body, this is very close to my "S" branded VI. The neck, while a thicker profile on the HB, is visually similar, and insets into the body at the same place as my Bass VI. The inlays look nice, and mine came with well-finished frets and binding. The pickups sound good, and are in fact fiber-base AlNiCo pickups, not cheapo bar-magnet bottom-of-the-heap pickups. The only complaint I have is I do kind of miss the individual on/off switches for the pickups, and the "strangle" switch like my real VI has. The hardware is solid, and again, if I were to complain about anything, it would be the lack of a vibrato/vibrola/tremolo (some may actually prefer this hard-tail/stopbar configuration though).

So when I got my HB, I started by adding a tiny shim to the neck to even out the action a bit, and it plays like a dream now. I then decided on two other mods to make this my go-to gigging Bass VI (I've preferred to leave my "real" one in my studio). First I added a VibraMate V5 and a Bigsby B5 vibrato so that I get my wiggle-stick action going on this one like on my other one. Secondly, I replaced the volume pot with a 1M pot, and the tone control with a push-pull pot wired as a traditional tone pot, but with the push-pull function to act as a "strangle" switch (high-pass), similar to the original design. Now this HB is every bit as versatile as my "real" Bass VI, and it really makes me want to write more songs to perform on it instead of standard guitar.

Pros:
- Excellent bang for the buck
- Nice build quality
- Sounds great
- Good hardware overall
- Fit/finish is awesome

Cons:
- No vibrato/vibrola/tremolo
- No "strangle" switch
- Neck is a tad too "beefy" for smaller hands
- Pickguard is a little plain without the metal control plates of the original design
- Only one finish option

Overall, this was a terrific first instrument purchase for me from Thomann/Harley Benton, and I really recommend it for guitarists and bassists looking to inspire some "outside the box" playing/writing. You won't be disappointed!

As a guitarist I'm most interested in the lower end, often tuning down to C, but as a bassist I end up playing chords like a guitar. So this is exactly what I've been looking for! Right out of the box this thing plays perfectly. The GBVS has a simple setup of volume, tone, and a 5-way pick-up selector that gives a wide range of sounds. The stock single-coil pickups & strings can be a little thin, especially if you're expecting a traditional bass sound, but the tone knob gives a lot of variety. And you could always change to a heavier string gauge or install different pick-ups. Cosmetically I have zero complaints. I love the offset body and neck shape, and the finish is great and light on the neck so it's easy to move your hand around. No frills needed.

It's an ideal rhythm instrument that has a distinct timbre from a bass or guitar that can give you massive backing tracks and low-end lines. Famously used by Peter Hook in New Order, Robert Smith on "Disintegration", and Glen Campbell in "Wichita Lineman", there's a lot of sonic possibilities available. I bet this would be killer for a 2-piece band, or a looper-based solo project!

After band Loathe came out with their baritones it totally changed metal guitarist community. After seeing pros of these guitars i knew i need one. Squiers were discontinued, aftermarket was way too overpriced i went to thomann and fount this!
I looked at the specs and they weren't that different from what i was looking after.
I bought it and within week and a half it came to local post office i grabbed it and went home unpacking. It was shipped in double box so that no damage is taken during shipping.
The guitar even though is quite affordable ships well-packaged - frets and headstock were covered in foam so that strings can't do any harm by accident.
The first day i immediately re-recorded guitars for my metal track and it was a big wow for me. Since i was working in-the-box with plugins, i had no troubles with single pickups and it's low output. I even preferred that sound over my 8-string active SD-Blackouts guitar. I think because of the tension that this scale lenght provides. All the low notes sounded well-articulated and tight. And i primarily used it at home for writing and learning. The whole guitar is made decent but it needed some minor adjustments such as truss-rod adjustments and saddle moving and few sharp fret edges but nothing critical it didn't cut hands just felt little itchy. I went little too far since i was luthier and i leveled the frets by myself and it become even better. But again, nothing major were done with that.
It's now just over 2 years i own it. And i finally decided to do the only thing that bothered me about this guitar - i've changed electronics.
As been said singles were low output and the guitar coudn't stand live applications such as metal gigs. When adding more and more gain the sound became more hissy.
What i did recently i made another pickguard (with mirror look) which has only Humbucker socket, small 2-way switch for on-off volume and jack. And now i'm finally happy with this guitar. By the way i've never been upset about it. All the regular use cases it went through it performed really well, i just couldn't stand making it little better.

Pros:
- Great shipping packaging
- Well tuned
- Paintjob and varnishing is made perfect
- Tuning stability is awesome because of great tuners used. Guitar literally never came out of tune by itself (note: string tension is way higher than on a regular scale guitar)
- Pretty lightweight for that of a scale length (subjective, my other guitar is an 8-string)
- Price

Cons:
- Few sharp fret edges
- (subjective) Low output singles (but guitar is considered to be in a vintage series so be it)
- Because of the neck lentgh it neck-dives but it's easily solved by swapping the strap button to a furniture hook with a carabiner on strap

The whole guitar is awesome for that price. All the changes i made to it were completely optional and not necessarily needed to one that considers it to buying.

Unfortunately the first Guitarbass had to be returned to Thomann with a large number of faults of which one was very serious. Thomann Customer Support was very good and paid for the return carriage and sent a replacement at no extra cost to me. So this rating and review is solely about the replacement.

I really liked the idea of an inexpensive Bass VI without a tremolo arm. I had previously tried out a Fender Squier Bass VI, but the tremolo put me off completely. Plus I thought the layout of the knobs and switches, whilst authentic enough, looked rather fussy. Whereas the Harley Benton suffered from none of these disadvantages and had a much lower cost.

The finish was excellent - a lovely sunburst front and back albeit with a few inconsequential tiny lacquer splashes. The fret edges were not rough and the fretboard block inlays were nicely done. The action out of the box was reasonably good - certainly quite playable. There were no problems with the sound other than a very slight probable ground loop hum - almost imperceptible. The middle pickup seems to be reverse wound reverse polarity which is very good. However the single coils do not seem to be prone to picking up noise unless deliberately provoked and I do not think they would benefit significantly from upgrading.

Considering the very low price this was a good instrument. But of course almost any guitar or bass can be improved :)

I took the Guitarbass to my luthier to change the strings and do a set up. I like flatwound strings and chose LaBella - actually they are the only manufacturer of Bass VI flatwounds as far as I know. The correct set for this instrument is the HC6F set (for Schecter Hellcat VI) which fit perfectly for length. The 767-6F set is too long but can be made to work although far from ideal. These strings transformed the instrument for my style of playing which is mostly jazz. In particular the low E .095" string was an enormous improvement on the original .084" roundwound low E - both in terms of intonation and feel. I have another short scale (30.3") bass and use a .110" D'Addario flatwound low E on that - however the .095" LaBella flatwound holds its own in comparison.

All the new strings fitted through the tailpiece with no need to drill to a larger diameter. They also fitted through the nut with no widening required. The nut depth was very nearly spot on which is quite unusual with an inexpensive guitar. Some adjustment was required to the bridge saddles for the bottom two strings.

The luthier also changed the volume and tone pots, jack socket, and 5 way switch for higher quality components and replaced the original unshielded wiring and rather poor soldering. He did some work on a few frets including removing and replacing one. After which the action was really superb - as low as one might wish for on a guitar and no buzzing whatsoever.

He also replaced the rather thin original neck screws with genuine Fender neck screws and at the same time corrected a slight misalignment of the neck so that now the two E strings are perfectly positioned relative to their fretboard edges and the pickup polepieces. The original alignment was not terrible but in the pursuit of perfection these things have to be done.

One issue was that the channel for the truss rod wrench does not easily allow the wrench to be fully inserted into the adjustment socket - it can be achieved but great care is needed. A solution is to use a wrench with a shorter arm or to cut the supplied wrench's short arm even shorter. In any event the truss rod adjustment socket looks to be made of rather soft metal so it may be wise to take all the load off the neck before making adjustments.

Following these improvements I now have an excellent Bass VI and am very satisfied. It's a very versatile instrument which can function purely as a bass or extend up into baritone territory. It's perfectly possible to pay chords on the upper four strings above about the fifth fret. The only question mark might be on consistency of quality between individual examples as the first instrument I received was very poor.

I'd been on the lookout for a six string bass for a long time and the Fender VI was top of my list having been played by George Harrison and John Lennon in the Beatles and Jack Bruce in Cream. I liked the idea that it was tuned the same as a regular guitar but an octave lower so I could easily switch from guitar to bass. The VI also had a thin neck. Unfortunately, it was (and still is) way out of my price range. Even the Squier version was priced steeply and having played one in store didn't feel as solid as it should.

So when the Harley Benton GuitarBass VS Vintage Series came out I took a chance I ordered. I'm so glad I did. Straight out of the box, it felt fantastic. The neck was comfortable, the action low without much buzz and even unplugged it sounded great with solid intonation right up its long neck. The finish looks even better in person than on the photos - darker and more subtle with its burst.

Plugged in it gets even better with a good variance of tone from the three pickups - they take effects very, very well. Often a lot of effects can take the depth out of your tone but starting an octave lower with a bass puts you in a great starting position for alt-rock/psychedelic experimentation.

As a standard bass, the Harley Benton GuitarBass VS Vintage Series is more than adequate but as a new voicing for existing electric guitar players it's a revelation. And an absolute bargain.

I have been buying guitars since 1985, and I have never taken the dive for an instrument I never handled. But I have been dying to own a Branded Bass VI for about 4 years, and I was completely seduced by Thomann’s price on the Harley Benton GuitarBass VS. When I ordered the guitar was out of stock but Thomann was able to correctly predict how soon they would be back in stock — an unusually-good act of supply chain management for an online seller.

When the guitar came back in stock, my order status changed to “in process” for 2 days. I thought there was a glitch in the system, so I reached out to Thomann on-line support. They informed me that the guitar was in Quality Control to make sure that it was in brand new condition and met all the Thomann standards for instrument quality - a great service when you are buying a guitar without seeing it first. That said, from the time my order status changed to the time the guitar landed at my front door, only 4 business days elapsed — and this guitar was coming from Germany to Central Time USA.

When I unpacked the guitar, it was in excellent condition. I tuned the guitar and plugged it in, and all the wiring and switches seem to be working fine. I was actually pleasantly surprised that the various 5-way settings all produced all the tone variations I had seen on videos of Bass VI performance — I expected the generic pickups to need replacement. (which was in the budget based on the original price of the guitar - it's a huge upside that I won't have to replace them)

A couple of technical things:
— Realistically, any guitar needs to be set up after tuning and allowing the neck to settle in. It is going to need a normal amount of set-up work (neck adjustment, intonation, etc.), not anything exceptional. The fretwork seems to be quite good.
— The action out of the box was incredible - 5/64 at the 12th fret after 24 hours of settling in.
— There are some comments in some reviews about the tuning machines. My opinion is that they seem adequate, but because I am picky I’m likely to replace them. However, I haven’t had any issues so far with anything but the strings stretching as new strings often do.
— The only negative comment I have is that the quality of the strings out of the box was very cheap. If this was my first guitar, I’d never have noticed, but anyone who wants to play this instrument like a bass will want something better than these steel strings which are noisy and very bright.

Listen: if you have always wanted a Bass VI, and you don’t want to drop $600 (or a lot more for a classic Branded model from the late 60’s), this is a great buy. You really cannot go wrong. Even the price of shipping makes this guitar half the price of the reissue Branded version.

I saw this guitar here on Thomann and immediately wanted it, despite the 3 single coil pickup loadout. And therein lay the problem. Once I got the guitar, I played it acoustically (it's quite loud and resonant) for a few weeks until I actually plugged it in. Ugh. Now, it's worth noting that I play normally with very high gain settings (I like and play mostly death metal and grindcore) so mileage may vary for different users in terms of tone BUT I found this guitar to be VERY noisy - and not in a good way. It's the noisiest guitar I've ever played, just a constant ground hum/buzz coming from it that got more or less extreme depending on where my hand was positioned and was especially bad/noticeable around the pickup selector. I took it to a luthier who plugged it in and immediately pulled a shocked face. I don't know if just my guitar was defective but I spoke to thomann extensively about this and presented them with videos and suchlike, and they did say "that's just how those single coils are". So, bear this in mind if you're looking for heavy/distorted tones from this out of the box. It doesn't like it. At all. I really wish this came with a more versatile pickup setup or, ideally, 2 humbuckers as are available on similar models available elsewhere.

HOWEVER, the actual set up and playability of the guitar was great. It required very little work. The stock strings were perfectly acceptable and the action was also fine.

I changed the pickups to a hot rail at the neck and routed a humbucker in the bridge position, and now it sounds perfect for my needs. I just deaded the middle pickup and replaced the 5 way toggle with a 3 way and the job's done.

I dislike the tuners, I'm not sure why these "vintage" styled tuners appear on modern instruments and they feel more like acoustic tuners. They're the metal box style, and don't really suit a modern guitar. They're also quite squashed up and a few are a little "off" in terms of being in a straight line, but that doesn't affect playability or their functionality at all. I will probably swap them out at some point for locking tuners.

The neck IS quite thick, but I've small hands and haven't really found it to be a major issue. Obviously it needs a strong neck with the amount of weight pulling on it from the heavy strings.

One final negative/nitpicky point would be that the finish is fairly wretched, but that's solely a matter of personal taste and obviously does not affect the sound or playability at all. I'd just rather it was more contemporary but I've always disliked tobacco finishes.

I actually opened a return ticket on this, but in the end decided that I liked the playability of the guitar enough to warrant keeping it, and that it justified a little more expense to get it sounding how I wanted. I'm very glad I put this work in, as I'm now happy to have this useful instrument in my collection.

I just received my Harley Benton Guitar Bass VS. Firstly, I'm very impressed with the instrument. It exceeds my expectations in almost every way. I bought it with the understanding that I'd likely have to do some fret leveling and end filing, etc. To my complete surprise, it's nearly perfect out of the very well packed box. It will require intonation and minor setup especially after the replacement strings are put on.

Secondly, Thomann did an extraordinary job of communicating with me throughout the process of pre-ordering through delivery from Germany to the USA. An included tag gave me a hand numbered indication that the product was inspected and quality checked before dispatch. Nice touch! Item made the trip across the Atlantic really quickly and only spent a day in customs.

This was my first purchase from Thomann and I will enthusiastically recommend them. Shipping was reasonable considering the distance and I had tracking the whole way.

Great job Harley Benton and Thomann! Thanks

This guitar...wow. This guitar. I literally (no joke) dreamed about buying one of these and I finally did. It was such a cool looking guitar/bass/baritone that I HAD to have one.
First thing off, the sound: pickups are okay-ish! At least in the bridge. The neck pickup is nice and warm but the one that stands out the most is the middle! It's actually a wonderful tone for cleans and I love it. I replaced the bridge pickup with a Seymour Duncan and was very happy with it. There were a few things I did notice however. First off, this is my personal experience and not everyone will receive a guitar like this; The nut was cut poorly and had some shavings hanging off it (no biggie, just cleaned that up) but I also had lots of markings and weird blemishes around the binding on the fretboard. Also, my low E string was a bit too close to the A. Hard to explain but I think the string spacing was messed up when the nut was installed. Other than that, setting up was easy and the bridge intonated just fine! (which, if you know how bass VI-like guitars are, intonation is a big issue but not here!)

Anyway, I love this thing now. It plays pretty darn well and sounds massive. Yes, I do use it for metal/rock stuff but as a clean guitar it sounds just as good too. I love recording both guitar parts and bass parts with it. Such a cool instrument. I also recommend this!

UPD, I played a little more and realized that the frets needed to be sanded and polished. Now the scale is rebuilt, but there are jingling frets and with the bends the string rustles very much about the fret. What I was counting on for this price.

I took this guitar because it is the cheapest 30 inch baritone. And I will evaluate it as an electric guitar.
In general, everything was done very well. But if you look closely, you notice signs of a low price:
- in the photo in the store there are the words "HBZ Customwound" on the sounds, but they are not on the guitar that came. Sounds sooooo weak. In the neck position, the sound is too soapy;
- frets are soft, during transportation they have traces of string friction;
- standard strings are very soft and have poor intonation even in its standard tuning;
- the nut has very rough cuts for the strings, and in order to pull the string out of the nut, you need to apply force.
But if you go back to the price, all these are mere trifles that are eliminated for a pittance in a few days.
As a base for the next upgrade, this is a great option. The closest competitors cost at least twice as much (Squier Bass VI or SubZero Rogue VI).