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Post by kodiakblair on Mar 2, 2015 20:30:44 GMT
This was my first Harley Benton,I'd recently joined the UK site BassChat and had been seeing mentions of Thomann so it was also my introduction to Thomann. As it was so fairly priced I thought I'd take a gamble and ordered one. It was an eye-opener,3 days and the bass was in Scotland :)So I'm looking it over and thinking " How the hell can it be so cheap ?" The tuners worked perfectly as does the bridge,a pleasant 9lbs weight and an extremely comfortable neck to play. No complaints with the wee Wilkinson pickup either. It's basswood body fits grand and though I've been told it has a Foto Flame finish I have no issue with that.Why a grain effect print should have any more bearing than if it was a solid white or black colour I have no idea.They're all underneath the poly finish. Though the D'Addarios supplied were fine I felt nylon flats would be better and this bass was the first I tried Status Hot Wires on.A lot of first happened with this bass (yes) I've heard from quite a few owners of these basses and never heard any complaints. To be truthful I really love this bass.It has a simplicity to it that makes playing a joy.This is one bass I will always keep. Everybody should own one
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302 posts
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Post by TitaniumRX on Mar 10, 2015 0:39:13 GMT
How is the pup Blair?Is noiseless? Great looking bass,i am gasing for one.
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Post by JAC on Mar 11, 2015 18:29:58 GMT
I also have one of these on my GAS list!
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1 posts
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Post by 4stringthing on Mar 15, 2015 21:18:38 GMT
Great basses, I bought one s/h for £70 delivered, spent £45 on having the headstock reshaped, £20 on some chrome covers and spent a few minutes, countersinking the scratchplate screws. It's now an absolute stunner, total cost £135! Oh and a couple of quid for a cheeky F****r decal....
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Post by kodiakblair on Mar 16, 2015 19:56:43 GMT
Hope that decal says F**K*R
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15 posts
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Post by ribbetingfrog on Feb 29, 2016 17:06:49 GMT
I just got my PB 50 today. Only bad points: It needed a set up, slight tweak to the truss rod and lowering the action. The tone knob is slightly bent, but only slightly. Had to unscrew the thinnest to remove to protective coating from the pick guard. Otherwise, awesome! Perfect finish, great Wilkinson pickup with plenty of character. The bridge is better than the MIM fender I used to own. More chunky. Tuners can't be faulted. Plays great. The d'addario strings are fantastic. I love the bright sound, accentuates the attack when I play with a pick. Perfect for the rock covers I play in my band. I'm looking forward to a beautiful relationship. Crazy how good a guitar can be for £76!
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Post by kodiakblair on Feb 29, 2016 17:33:24 GMT
Glad you like the bass.
To be fair your bad points are to be expected from any mail order bass. The askew tone knob though I've heard of before,don't try and bend it instead slacken off the nut and slip a packer in to counter the bend.
Congratulations on a fine choice. May it serve you well for years to come.
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Post by oddlyn on Mar 1, 2016 1:32:48 GMT
They are a great bass...What I love most is the neck, so comfortable to play which was a bit of a surprise as I have small hands, and had been playing a Jazz until I got this. I've modded mine a bit, but the neck and pickup are the important parts for me, and they're both staying put.
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15 posts
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Post by ribbetingfrog on Mar 6, 2016 0:09:00 GMT
I'm toying with a bridge cover and stick on fret markers, black blocks like the Squier vintage jazz bass. Nothing too costly or I'd undermine it's value-tastic nature.
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DefJef
THBC Moderator
Due to musical differences I've decided I can't work with myself any more.
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Post by DefJef on Mar 6, 2016 11:50:11 GMT
This was my first Harley Benton,I'd recently joined the UK site BassChat and had been seeing mentions of Thomann so it was also my introduction to Thomann. Though the D'Addarios supplied were fine I felt nylon flats would be better and this bass was the first I tried Status Hot Wires on. I'm not a bassist, I only own three(!!! !!! ) so I'm wondering, if that was your collection - a no name Jazz, a cheap as chips Precision and a fretless Vintage sort of Sting Ray - what would you do with the strings and why? At the moment they are all as they came to me second hand with roundwounds.
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Post by kodiakblair on Mar 6, 2016 13:20:32 GMT
DefJefThat's a right good collection,you have the 3 key players. My personal taste for a few years has been flats or tapes on P-basses,I had a bout of nostalgia for Roto tapes.They take some of the aggression from a P bass and kinda thicken the tone. This is just how it seems to me,in no way gospel,flats can be relatively cheap to try out Fenders about £12-£15.Well thought of strings the Fender flats. Some can have quite a high tension that can be off-putting yet Thomastik TI's are low tension (£30 from DV24/7,Thomann).Easy on the fingers and long lasting and if you went for D'Addario Chromes folk swear they add some brightness. Roundwound are commom on jazz basses these days,strangely the first jazz I played had flats (it was also £30 dearer and heavier to boot than the P bass ).Something is niggling that Larry Graham used flats as did Bernie Edwards so flats definitely work on a jazz bass.I do have rounds on most of mine though,not a decision, they just had them. Again a personal thing but I go for a lighter gauge on jazz necks. There's one of the last sets of Hot Wires might go on the JB-75 but I fear the E string is dead on the PB-50 so it has preferrence. Stingrays I've always pegged as loud,bright in your face basses that seem to cry out for roundwounds,course the sadly missed Louis Johnson from the Brothers Johnson did wonderful slap bass on a Ray strung with flats It really is all in the fingers. I'd be tempted to stay with roundwound on the Vintage Ray,think of Pino's playing in the 80's. Man what a tone !! Folks will say rounds will chew the fingerboard,aforementioned Pino had his Musicman epoxied twice I believe but how many 1000's of hours did he put in on it ? Sorry for the very long post DefJef I'd recommend having a set of flats in the arsenal,they last for years and are easy swapped between basses (outer wind stays together).Can take a wee while to break in though.I kinda like slightly dead rounds too,a new set is too bright for me. All this is just my personal opinion,as with everything musical if it works for "YOU" then it's right.
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DefJef
THBC Moderator
Due to musical differences I've decided I can't work with myself any more.
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Post by DefJef on Mar 6, 2016 13:36:55 GMT
Hey thanks for the comprehensive answer kodiakblair. You surprise me that with the brighter sounding Jazz you don't recommend the less bright flatwounds and vice versa on the Precision and Sting Ray. My natural thought was to try to balance these tendencies out but now you mention it, why not enhance the characteristics of each of these so that they are distinctively different? So Pino used roundwounds did he? I thought flats on a fretless would make most sense so as not to pick up too much string slide squeaks. So there you go, wrong again! I'm trying to learn to use the pad of my finger rather than the tips as I would on guitar to eliminate as much string squeak as possible on all my bass playing. Am I wrong here again? Wouldn't totally shock me.
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Post by GKon on Mar 6, 2016 15:08:31 GMT
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Post by JAC on Mar 6, 2016 17:21:50 GMT
Just to add my tuppence I agree with kodiakblair that you have the "basses" covered I don't have any experience with ray style basses, other that trying a few out, but as KB also says, ray scream for rounds in my opinion. For the rest, well I am also a fan of flats, although I wouldn't want all of my basses with them. Currently I have LaBella flats on the shorty P and GHS Precision Flats on the Squier P/J. I love both of them with flats. On the rest, I have roundwounds in various states of dying. On the Jazz I tried flats, but preferred rounds. Not that the sound was bad, it just sounded like it was trying to imitate a sound that the P does much better. In the fretless (also Jazz) I think I still have the strings that came on it, Fender I guess due to the red string windings. I played the fretless constantly for about a year while I was in Italy, as it was the only bass I had with me (I bought it used in Genoa), but once it got home it got neglected. Now when I pick it up, it sounds like crap because the strings are long dead, so I put it back and think "must change those strings". The 5er, which is dual soapbar, also wears rounds. My personal choice for strings are D'Addario Nickelwounds, so anything that I replace rounds on gets these. I must say, I have been pleasantly surprised by the tapewounds that arrived on the Dean, but I haven't played it for long enough yet, or tried it with anything else, to say if they are better or worse. One last thing that I will add, and I know this may sound petty, but flatwounds certainly help keep maintenance costs down. A lot if people (myself included) find that roundwounds loose their livelyness quickly, so they need to be changed. Flats actually improve with time, so any bass that is strung with flats can be forgotten about for string changing time. I mean, I have 11 basses (far less than others around here) and pay around 20€ for a set of D'Addarios. If I changed my strings only twice a year, that is 450€ a year in strings!
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