Harley Benton MV-4JB Shell Pink

Well I am a precision bass guy in average.
I had 3 jazz basses before usually Squier CV or Affinity series somehow I sold them all, but after a long time I was curious about that jazz bass after I watched BassTheWorld's videos about it.

This Harley Benton bass is just incredible in many ways. I had no serious expectations about it, but when I took it out of the box I was stunned.

Where to begin... First, the finish was great for the first look. The neck is comfortalbe, roasted maple, the binding is fine, the fretboard is laurel but it has a nice dark tone I will give it some lemon oil at the first string change. It comes with D' addario strings, its really good, but my hand are really sweaty so I use only coated strings. That will happen in a few days.

The tuners are smooth, they hold the tuning really well. Nut is great, hights filed fine. The fretwork is really good I did not feel rough edges, and there is no fretbuzz at all, even at higher positions. The brass saddles on the bridge give the bass nice sustain. The sound is even better than I expected. I would not tell at a blindfolded challenge, that is not a Fender or any other jazz bass on the market that have a higher price tag.

I had to make some adjustments on the neck, but it was not a problem, the truss rod's wheel rotates smooth I did not recognize any problems. You can easily adjust the saddles and you can earn a really low action with a perfect intonation. It is also enjoyable that the dot position markers inside the binding are phosphorescent. I recognized it by accident. The inlays in the fretboard are fine work as well. The only thing that I would describe as a "problem" is its weight.

This bass is a little bit heavy, but I don't really care I am not a paperdog... Overall I recommend this bass to anyone who wants a great bass for this ridiculous price for this quality. I just dropped my jaw, I mean it. Lets go Harley Benton follow this path!

The guitar, the construction the sound is just perfect for the price.
My audible concern is the final checkup. The guitar as it came had some fixable issues, though it is questionable how it was QCed before finishing assembly:
- PUs were not levelled, sound was highly unequal between strings
- neck PU was not working initially. By opening the electronics up, it turned out that the PU cable was not soldered to the volume pot, it was just hanging.
All quick fixes, if you know your instrument...

After fixing them it is a marvellous instrument. Love it!

I’m an experienced professional musician and over the years have owned many high end basses (Warwick stage 2/fretless Corvette, USA P’s and J’s, etc) and my main bass is a 5 string Overwater. So I have perspective . But I still suffer from GAS and so I occasionally buy a cheaper bass for a bit of fun. I’ve got a couple of Sires which are great and I liked the look of this Harley Benton and thought I’d have a go for less than £200.
It’s really well made, plays exceptionally well and the tone is comparable with £1000 basses. Great for finger style and slap, don’t use a pick much but it seems good on that too. And the tone/volume controls enable a wide variety of tones from almost Precision to Jaco and quite a bit in between.
The neck is great, extremely smooth and easy to fly around. It’s fun, if you know what I mean, and makes you want to play more.
The saddles and truss rod only required a slight tweak to lower the action a bit to my preference. I can play fast on this bass the same way I can in my Overwater. I may change the strings as there’s a certain feel to them I’m not in love with, but they’re fine, I’m probably just a bit fussy.
They’ve even put fluorescent fret markers on the neck!
If I think back to my first bass in the late 70’s as a novice player (a terrible short scale Kay with an action you could fit an action man under) and what players can buy now for less than £200 is simply phenomenal.
The pink is really lovely. I’m putting a tortoiseshell pick guard on it and was thinking about new pickups, like a Bill Lawrence set, but actually why bother? They’re fine as they are.
Haven’t gigged with it as I mostly work in studios/pits, but in terms of weight it feels well balanced on the strap, no neck dive for me. It’s not light but I’m used to heavier basses and enjoy the solidity. What can I find wrong with it?
Er…..
To conclude: if you’ve got other basses, get one. If it’s your first bass, get one. If you want a decent bass to take out on gigs, without worrying, get 1 (or 2).
OK - I’m off to have another razz on it.

I am blown away by the quality of this instrument. At the price range of 200 - 250 euros, this is undoubtedly one of the best choices you can make, whether you're casually looking for your next bass to have fun/jam/gig with, or you want to purchase your very first bass!


Build Quality:
The glossy finish on the body is extremely well done, the knobs feel sturdy and easy to rotate, the jack is very tight and holds the cable well, and the neck has an absolutely lovely finish. The fretboard is nice, doesn't feel dry, and the factory D'Addario strings are very solid. I didn't replace them.
I did proceed with some slight truss rod adjustment and lowered the action, just to make the instrument even more playable. It worked perfectly!
The only thing I wanna mention as a slight downside is that the metal plate they used that holds the knobs and jack feels kinda cheap. You can see some leftover "stains" when you lightly touch it and remove your finger. That, however, is expected quality assurance wise. You can't have such an awesome instrument for this price and not expect any compromises. Therefore, this won't affect the rating.

Comfort:
The Harley Benton MV-4JB is extremely comfortable to play.
The neck feels very very smooth and it has the perfect width. It's ideal whether you wanna play some lines, fills, chords, arpeggios, anything. It is a breeze to just move your left hand around the fretboard, even on the higher frets, and play whatever phrase you wanna. It is a gem.
The only thing that's not-so-comfortable is that after playing while standing for a bit (say around an hour) you might start to feel some stress put on your shoulder. The headstock seems average sized for a jazz bass, but that could just be me. It could be larger, I didn't compare.

Pickups:
The HBZ custom pickups are actually solid and produce a nice, warm, slightly punchy sound, I am very very satisfied with them! Now yes, if you want the most high-end sound possible, you'll probably replace them in the long run. In my humble opinion, though, it's not necessary. They sound punchy enough for the average joe, and unless you plan to play for metallica, a lot of listeners probably won't tell the difference between them and better pickups (the lower frequencies also help with that, haha). I did a gig with them for a local show, where I used the venue's full rig of course. It sounded so nice I was blown away a 200+ euro bass could produce that sound.
Now, I know that the main factor that affects your tone, guitar or bass, is the cabinet's speaker (impulse response), and to another extent the head amp. I am not saying the pickups produce THAT sound I had, I'm just saying if you're looking to gig with this thing without doing any upgrades, you ABSOLUTELY CAN! The not-so-flashy HBZ pickups will be just fine, I promise :) Just replace them when something seems off with them.

Sound:
As was hinted in the pickups section, the sound is phenomenal. Warm, full, a little bit punchy, it has it all for what you're buying. For my clean tone I mainly use Guitar Rig 7's "Super Bass" profile, and modify it to my liking. For my distortion bass sound, even though the pickups were not really designed for such sound profile, I use Bogren's Trivium Bassknob head amp with some other bass IR's (Komposition101, Tone3000), and just crank up the gain, haha. The sound is obviously not Dingwall bass level, but it is alright with some tweaking and other plugins. I had fun with it still.
But yeah, the clean tones sounded just perfect, and I didn't get any annoying noise even on higher decibels and gain levels. That was so cool!


Overall:
Just buy this bass.