Harley Benton ST-62CC Lake Placid Blue

This is the second electric guitar i own, my latest guitar was an epi lp studio. I bought this ST-62 for sound versatility (pup+trem).

The guitar looks awesome, finish is beautiful the light mint green scratchboard is a great plus. Overall one of the most beautyfull guitar i ever saw.

The fretboard was okay, the strings aren't high, no sharp fret ends. The only "problem" i had were some scratchy frets, but it can be solved pretty fast.

The tremolo is very good, the guitar doesnt goes out of tune if i use it, ( some setup will be needed in the future but still very good).

Tonewise it sounds great (using it on a Positive Grid Spark) I tried a lot of preset and it sounds awesome every time.

Pros:
- Price as ever
- Beautiful guitar
- Nice sound
- Versatile pickups

Con:
- Scratcy frets
- trem system needs some setup.

Overall i'm very satisfied with the product, i recommend these guitars.

Cant wait, for my next purchase.

Build quality is top notch! The colors are amazingly chosen. Pleases the look! Just a little bit you need to sand the frets, but this is a claim to the climate, and not to the guitar. The sound is very pleasant (of course 2 and 4 especially). From the factory, the guitar was not tuned to scale, the string height was twisted to the maximum, so after receiving the guitar, we had to tune it a little more.
One saddle in the bridge is not adjustable. The nut was turned off at the factory, and now it cannot be turned with a wrench. No problem, I'll buy a new one.
The pegs are fully functional. Removed the tremolo arm immediately. On inexpensive guitars, it is superfluous =).
Conclusion: Very well made guitar! I am very pleased!

So,this is my first guitar and I`ve never played guitar before. I really like this strat and I treat it like a real person and I miss it if I don`t play on it for 1 day. It sounds REALLY amazing. If you compare it to Fender, Fender sounds more clean and expensive, BUT! But Harley Benton in my opinion sounds more like retro guitar and I like It`s vibe more than Fender, cuz I like retro music. This guitar sounds like real punk guitar and I didn`t regret of buying it. Harley Benton make guitars with hearts, that`s all. What I don't like is the slight carelessness of the assembly. Not critical minor flaws are frustrating, I would like to pay an extra 50-100 euros and get the same thing, but fully tested and of the highest quality. Otherwise I'm happy and I don't want to change this guitar to a fender because it's unique.

I have somewhat mixed feelings about this guitar.

1. First of all, the guitar came with rusted strings, which wasn´t a big deal as i changed them for another size anyway. But it doesn´t look great on a new product.

2. While adjusting string action, an adjustment screw on one saddle tore the thread on that saddle. Now i have to order spare saddles plus shipping (as for i´m not in Germany, and shipping is more than the price of the saddles), or go to local shop and buy original ones for 50€. Or fiddle a home made solution.

3. The pickups sound nice, although they are a bit weak, and my polytuner sometimes struggles catching them. But compared to a 20+ year old Squier, these sound realy realy nice.

4. The tuners are bit grity, but seem to work well, although they are pretty sensitive, at least compared to grover tuners.

5. Electronics seem to work well, there is no static by adjusting knobs or the switch. The finish is nice, and there are no visible flaws on the paint job. The frets are more or less in height. Mine has no fret sprout, and feels comfortable.

All in all, its great one can buy a usable, good lookin and nice sounding instrument for this budget price these days. As for the price, i understand i get a budget product, the part with the saddles realy irritated me.

I make no bones about it - I have Fender necks; always have. So I'm constantly looking for a guitar that can "be a Strat" but without the skinny, thin, 9.5" radius modern C. But of course it still has to have that throaty strat neck pickup sound and those in-between pickup quacks.

Imagine my surprise when a $160 guitar did it better than others I've tried in a much higher price range. The neck is fantastic. (It's a bit flat, but definitely more to my taste; a wider and a bit chunkier, but not too much.) and the pickups sound great. They aren't as good as the best Lollars or Seymour Duncans, but they are good!

All the electronics were good, no finish cracks or dings, cool mint pickguard, lightweight, decent fretwork. The only thing I had an issue with was the saddle screws. They're long, so they stick out. Easy to fix.

All in all a great purchase for me.

Pros
This is a robust thing you can just have fun with. Mine could probably have a lower action but the one it came with is similar to my other guitar.

The pickups have what I believe is vintage output, which means you have tonnes of headroom for even your cheap pedals. For me this is an advantage, as I have some pedals I can't use because my humbuckers will break up causing a lowered output with the pedal engaged.

Has great colour too.

I saw many people saying you need to change the strings right away. Mine are fine. I put GHS fast fret on as a precaution before playing and after a few days they're basically new.

Cons
I used Dunlop Micro fine polish to polish the frets when the strings were loosened to replace the string trees and they're nice and smooth.

The string trees are quite poor and affect tuning, so order two of the Harley Benton Chrome rollers for next to nothing and that fixes that.

The trem detunes the guitar a lot so I don't use. Will try after replacing nut. The trem screw is a bit too tight too. Also the saddles do dig into your hand a bit if you're palm muting.

The scratch plate has some screws in at a weird angle like the holes were drilled wrong.

It's no American Deluxe Strat, but it's also not one of the awful offerings many people might be familiar with. It's quite good and playable. I'd record and gig with it.

Total rating takes into account the price!