Harley Benton JB-40FL 3-Tone Sunburst

As other reviewers have said, this is just excellent for the money - it would be good value at two or three times the price. It is a very nice looking instrument, the fit and finish is pretty good (albeit a bit rough in places), it plays very well and it sounds terrific.

I have the fretted version (the JB-75MN) and bought the fretless to see how close it would sound to an upright bass, since I play mostly jazz. The answer is not very. I have ordered some Thomastik flat wound strings (which cost half as much as the guitar) and will report back if that makes a significant improvement. I'm hopeful because the Thomastik strings I have on my archtop guitar really brought out the classic jazz sound.

I'm not a bass player so I was expecting the fretless to be hard erto play than the JB-75, but I immediately found it to be easier. The neck seems to be slimmer- it isn't actually, I think it's just that there are no frets to clear and so the string height is lower, and it is very low. I found no problem with getting a clean sound except on the first string, which buzzes a bit. I raised the saddle, which helped a bit. I noticed that there is almost no relief in the neck to I tried adjusting the truss rod, but that made no difference at all, so I set it back to the way it came from the factory.

The fretless sounds better! It has a fuller, warmer sound than the JB-75. The improvement in sound could just be due to the fact that there are no frets or it could be due to one or more of the design differences. The pickups are different - Roswell vs Wilkinson, the fretless has a black wood fretboard vs maple, the bridge is different, with steel vs brass saddles and the fretless neck has a skunk stripe.

There is one issue that I would like to raise which is that the strings do not align properly with the pickups and the neck. The bass string is nearly 1cm from the edge of the fretboard at the end of the neck. I thought at first this was a manufacturing problem but after taking some measurements, I am pretty sure it is because the bridge is too narrow. It has 19mm separation between the strings, whereas the JB-75 has 20mm, and everything aligns perfectly on the JB-75. The photographs on the Thomann website hide this because they are taken at an angle. It's not a big deal, but I don't understand why they made that design change.

Update, May 2021.
I forgot to feedback my experiences changing the strings for Thomastik Infeld flat wounds. Just do it!! I know they cost half as much as the guitar but the difference is unbelievable. The JB-40FL now sounds much more like an upright bass and with the ability on a fretless guitar to slide into the notes, It has quite convincing upright bass character that is ideal for jazz.

I was convinced to buy this bass after watching EytschPi 42's review on YouTube - which I strongly suggest you seek out if you are considering one of these. It arrived the third day after ordering, well packaged and in good condition. After tuning I found the intonation and set up to be spot on straight out of the box - if adjustments had been needed the tools required are included, along with a lead - a nice touch. The neck is superb - slim and with a beautiful satin finish. The maple is subtly flamed as well - I suppose I got lucky there! The nut is well cut, the tuners work well and are stable and the bridge is thicker plate than on my Mexican Fender. The body looks to me to be one piece - either that or it has veneers front and back. I've literally looked with a magnifying glass and can see no hint of a join. The finish, again, is flawless, the burst nicely applied and then buffed to a mirror finish. I have seen poorer on much more costly instruments. The pick-ups - branded 'Roswell - ' seem fine, with a good output.It is as loud as my other basses. The tone control doesn't do a great deal other than at its extremes, but the tones it has are very useable. Rolled off and with the front pick up on it can get a passable upright bass sound, but full on and with just the bridge pick up on it absolutely sings! Just the right amount of 'mwahh', plenty of sustain and very responsive to how hard you pluck and whereabouts you pluck. If I had seen this in a shop and tried it I would have expected to see it priced nearer £500. And I would probably have bought it! It really is that good. Maybe I just got lucky, but looking at other reviews I don't get that impression. I have no hesitation whatsoever in wholeheartedly recommending you buy one of these. It doesn't look out of its league sharing a stand with a Ric and a Fender, and at these astonishingly low prices I think I shall be buying more Harley Benton kit.

Buy one... you know you want to!

Thanks Thomann, and well done.

Had it for about a week now, and I love it. The finish is great, no blemishes found, overall it looks splendid! Straight out of the box it was set up pretty well, though I lowered the saddles a bit and adjusted the neck relief just to suit my playing. It has plenty of "mwah", and in the right hands it has that Jaco sound. Also the neck is very comfortable. It's hard to put it all into words, but it is ridiculous how good of an instrument it is, especially for this price! The moment I've gotten it I haven't been playing anything else, all my other basses and guitars are gathering dust, watching with envy as I continue to play this for hours upon hours. The roswell pickups are fine, they're not the best, but they are a definite upgrade to any no-name cheapo stuff you'd normally get at this pricepoint, or even a little beyond it. That being said, the pickups are absolutely good enough for whatever you're gonna throw at it, be it fast passages, harmonics, etc. The neck pickup is very soft and full, while the back pickup is punchy and tight. The guitar itself is pretty darn heavy, not too heavy mind You, but it has some heft. It is ever so slightly neck heavy, but it's minimal - the friction from a strap easily counters it. Also it sounds beautifully unplugged, a very earthy tone. One slight "fault", if I was to be nitpicky, is that he knobs are pretty darn stiff, so any adjustments on the fly will require some getting used to. Other than that, I couldn't be happier. Normally you'd have to spend at least twice as much money to get anything close to a fretless that plays as nice as this. Absolutely do recommend. (Also, a hurrah! for Thomann. With the pandemic in mind, this was both the fastest dispatch and delivery of any order ever. I was gladly surprised!)

At this price it would be hard to complain about anything. It arrived today and was decently set up out of the box. Fit and finish were flawless. Tuned it up and it plays like a dream! String height is set perfectly and so is neck relief. Intonation is a tiny bit sharp at the 12th position, but easily fixed. Have not got around to that yet, I finally set it down for a few minutes to write this.
Sounds good direct to amp. Really got fun when ran it through my board to get Jaco tones! I went bonkers on a jazz odyssey and ended up doing some swing too. Not really upright bass sounding, but something in between with the round wound strings. (probably because it is what kind of strings Jaco used) Even with the rounds, can get a wonderful old school Motown/Jazz sound easily. I have some DR Black Beauty flats to put on it for a more traditional upright/fretless sound to install later.
The old common issue others were seeing appears to have been fixed. Poles line up perfectly with the strings.
Hard to believe you can have this much fun and get this kind of quality at this price!

Bought this after a year of having it in the “shopping cart” and thinking about it. After I saw Lobster’s video giving it 5 “claws” I was sold. This is my first Harley Benton product and definitely not the last!

The bass is very well constructed. I am so impressed at the quality of the finish, fit, parts and sound, it blows my mind to know it came from a bass this inexpensive.

The sound is very reminiscent of a true jazz bass, but mixed in with the obvious mwah and nuances of a fretless bass. Pickups are great, although electronics could benefit a better, higher quality wiring harness or preamp, mostly for volume, and noise reduction, as it is a bit noisy. But certainly not at all necessary.

Hardware is great. Was expecting way cheaper feeling tuners/bridge, but to my surprise I will be keeping both on as I don’t find it necessary to upgrade them.

Neck is buttery smooth. I just love it. The fretlines are very well installed, and fingerboard wood is beautiful. The edges of the fingerboard are a little sharp though, i will round it out eventually.

I love the harley benton headstock shape. One of the best ones out there.

Now for the “cons”. This bass is somewhat heavy. Heavier than my 5 string jazz bass with active preamp. I just use a wider strap and strap locks.
Like I mentioned, the noise. I haven’t gone under the control cavity, but I’m guessing these basses aren’t shielded. But if that’s the case, it’s an easy fix.

In conclusion, i can’t recommend this bass enough! For your first fretless is more than enough. Even as a main player, it is just good. I think of a fretless bass as a must for any serious bass player to learn, as you just learn to navigate the fingerboard in a totally different way. It’s just FUN!

I have owned a Fender Maverick bass (my first bass) and a fretless Precision Bass and this bass is on par with both of them both in terms of sound and quality. I am frankly stunned that Harley Benton can sell a bass of this quality at this price, but I'm not going to complain because I absolutely love this bass!

The only negative is the factory-installed strings. First, they're the wrong gauge for a Jaco bass since he used era Rotosound Swing Bass strings that were gauged 46-63-80-102. So a better equivalent would be today's Rotosound RS66LN Nickel Bass Guitar Strings (45 65 80 100) than the heavier gauged strings that they install at the factory.

That's part one. Part two is that the factory-installed set was just dead. No gain and no brightness to them at all. Just dead. So the fix was simple, I just put on a set of these Rotosounds and now this bass sings like a bird at Birdland.

The last thing that you should be aware of is that this bass is HEAVY! I'm not a Jazz bass expert but I'm told that they used a heavier wood in the body of this bass than what Fender uses in the Jazz Bass and you can really feel it. It's closer in weight to my Gibson Grabber than anything Fender that I have owned.

So other than just a couple of twists that are easily fixed with a good guitar strap and better string this is a fantastic bass at a fantastic price.

I heartily recommend it. I love mine, and I can't put it down.

One year ago I bought the Harley Benton MB-5 SB Deluxe Series, and you can reed my feedback under it. I gave 3 stars, a feedback score way lower than the average ones. I also explained the reasons for such a score.
Today I'm reviewing another Harley Benton Bass, this time it's a fretless J-Bass, homage to Jaco Pastorius' Bass of Doom (the way it looked before Jaco destroyed it, not the way it looks now in the big hands of Robert Trujillo!).

First and foremost, this bass is lightyears away from the MB-5 SB Deluxe Stingray copy.

Preface. Being my first fretless bass, I do not have any precise reference.

Short review. Do you want to treat yourself to a fretless bass that even looks like Jaco's Bass of Doom, without having to take out a loan? Steal this bass. Seriously, even with the bass in my hand, I cannot believe that such an instrument could be sold for 179€.

Detailed review. In order to keep the price as low as possible, a lot of compromises are necessary. I consider that in my evaluation.

Pros:
Build quality. The overall construction of the instrument is very good. There is no play between the body and the neck: they seem to be tailor matched. Maybe other owners were less lucky. All screws are well fixed (also thanks to the dense wood of the body). No shims, spacers or any kind of patch is to be found anywhere in this bass. the people who designed this bass and those who put it together did a great job.
Painting. The painting is uniform and smooth, w/o any visible imperfection. is it thin, or is it thick, as it was on the MB-5 SB Deluxe? Only when I begin to relic it I can tell (the idea is to create a replica of the Bass of Doom)
Neck. The neck is straight and the finish of the back is satin and feels good.
Electronics. minipots, but noiseless for the time being and with a good logarithmic response. No soldering or grounding issues.
Pickups. I tried several combinations of the two pickups in order to find the classic fretless sound -eventually found for A-D-G strings- so I have played a lot with the pickups adjustments and te post-eq. they are from Roswell, differently sized to match the different space between the strings at the neck or at the bridge position. They are AlNiCo V, and, since my other basses have either AlNiCo II, III or ceramics PuPs, I can't really compare. They look and sound like standard single coil PuPs and produce the expected nasal J sound: snappier from bridge, more mellow from neck. The sound is however quite warm, I didn't expect an AlNiCo V to produce such a warm tone.
Sound. Little to complain once equipped with quality flatwound strings. with the roundwounds it came equipped with... 4 stars.
Setup. For the first time, the factory setup of a bass that comes from China or Indonesia is excellent out of the box. Or maybe someone at Thomann worked on it, but I didn't find any QC card from Thomann inside the box, only the one from the Chinese factory. Or maybe I'm fooled because my only reference are fretted basses... Anyway, has low action and perfect intonation. Maybe I'll lower the action further and see how it goes. Expect updates on this. Oh, I almost forgot. The PuPs are set too low. I've read some reviews with complains for either low output or the impossibility to adjust the PuPs height. I hope that's not the case, but I can easily see a correlation between these two issues. Expect updates on this too.

So&sos
it weights a ton. The Ash body looks cool and solid, and you feel every bit of it. On your shoulder.
Tuning keys. They are "Squier-grade": they are OK but the screws easily slip.
Shielding. Not shielded at all, and you hear the hiss noise when not touching any metal part. I'll fix this with copper tape.
Fretboard. out of the box it was dry. It is laurel, it could deteriorate quickly -especially with ROUNDWOUND STRINGS. PS. great that has sharp edges. I'm not a big fan of rolled edges.
Hardware. As for the tuning keys, the quality is Squier (Affinity) grade. It's OK -if I'm asked to sacrifice something to keep production costs low, then I would sacrifice the hardware. As part of the hardware, I also include the knobs. They look like those on Fender J bass, but feel muddy when turning (not a bad feeling, but it's the first time I experience such a friction in turning pots' knobs). Jaco replaced those knobs with the knurled chrome knobs from a Fender p bass... TBD.
Strings. To keep the price insanely low, budget roundwound strings were used; flatwound should be the strings of choice for a fretless bass. OK, Jaco used roudwound, but 10 years old and dipped into goose grease, so you can almost consider them flatwounds...
Nut. It's plastic, but for a while it does its job.

Cons:
None so far.
Well, actually one, minor. Why any attempts to introduce some variations on the Fender headstock shape end up in a failure? Educated guess: because the Fender headstock design is not simply iconic, it recalls (by chance?) the violin key on a pentagram... what do Sire's or HB's ones recall?

Summing up, for a ridiculous price, you own a fretless bass that looks great, sounds great (after replacing the strings with good quality flatwounds) and plays very good. Actually, if it wasn't for the weight, I'd say it plays great. But be reassured: no neck diving issue here.

I've had this bass now for over a year and I still play it almost every day. This bass is unbeatable at its price. I use it mostly for practice and recording, though it has been gigged without issues.

The pros:
It's pretty well made and durable. I stringed it with nylon tapewounds and it sounds very smooth and feels great to play. Easy to get near the "Jaco" sound as well if you crank up the bridge pickup (probably even easier with roundwounds). The cons section of this is pretty much looking a gift horse in the mouth, since there is no other bass on the market at this price that is this well made. The tuners are solid and hold tune well. The neck is nice and smooth, fretboard pretty well-leveled. The bass is on the heavy side and neck-dives a bit. Not to the point that it gets annoying, though.

The cons (I am nit-picking here, these are all very minor flaws considering the price of the bass):
It isn't perfect, obviously. To get the plastic wrap off the metal scratch plate, you have to unscrew the plate, all the potentiometers and the jack plug (not a big deal, but you need a screwdriver and wrenches, also the knobs themselves are really hard to pull off at first as they seem to be glued on). The bridge is screwed down in the wrong place, laterally off by about 1-2 mm, meaning the strings don't align with the pickups properly and they aren't perfectly centered on the fretboard (this is not visible in the pictures because they are taken at an angle - possibly on purpose - sound output is still good though). My fretboard had one dead spot near the first "fret" on the D string. The truss rod is weird - I can't loosen it enough to get proper relief in the neck, it's at its maximum looseness and at that point the bolt starts to come off - it's still workable though. The tone knob doesn't seem to do much to the sound at all.

Honestly, just buy it, you aren't gonna find a fretless with a better price/performance ratio, trust me, I've tried.