dtjesus
Harley Benton Club Junior Member
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Post by dtjesus on Aug 18, 2018 20:22:04 GMT
Hello all, This is my first post here. I just received a HB SC450 Plus LD and a SC Custom VB from Thomann and thought I'd share my experience with Thomann and HB. First off, here is an unboxing video of the shipment. That is, if you are like me and love watching unboxing vids of gear you already have just incase someone else got more stuff than you did Unboxing Thomann Harley Benton SC-450 plus LD and HB Custom VB - 2018So, after watching countless vids on youtube and researching for months, I decided to pull the trigger on Harley Bentons. Initially i just wanted to buy the SC450plus, however, shipping to Canada is 80 bucks and that really jacks up the price. So i ended up buying two guitars eventually. My thoughts on the SC450plus LD; - Beautiful guitar. Beautiful finish. Its actually lighter than i thought it would be. - Love the coil split. Particularly on the neck pickup as its heavy wound and sounds better in split imo. - Tuners are a bit stiff and keep loosing tuning on some strings(particularly G). I WD40'd them and they are a little better now. Will probably have to replace. - Guitar came setup, however, the action was way too high for me with a very noticeable relief in the neck. It took me a few days of setup to get it down to how i ike it. I think it also has to do with Alberta being super dry. The guitars are still adjusting to the environment. - Nut seemed too high and intonation on first 3 frets was quite sharp. I had to file the slots down for it to work a bit. - Came with Roswell pickups. Supposedly LAF, however, this is where I have an issue with Thomann site and customer service. SC Custom VB; - This thing weighs a ton. Like for real. I am not sure whether I am supposed to play it or bench press it. It could be the heavy strap locks, but I swear I have never picked up a guitar this heavy. lol - Setup was great out of the box. Very playable instrument. Not sure if real Grover tuners but they work like butter. - Strings came a bit rusty. I am guessing its because there was no paper covering the strings of either guitars during the voyage across the sea. - Same Roswell Pickups The Roswell incident / Thomann experience; So initially when i was ordering, I was a happy bunny thinking I was going to get Wilkinson Alnico pickups as stated by the description on their site. I use to have those pickups in my earlier Vintage guitars about 15 yrs ago and they sounded beautiful. I even emailed CS before ordering and got affirmative on the Wilkies. However, after ordering i was told it was going to be Roswell LAF's. Checked the specs. They seemed alright at 8k range for both neck and bridge. However, that is not the case. Even though the pickups say they are LAF's, i believe these are actually LPSA pickups. Bridge is about 17K (and not 8k as LAF specs state), well far from any vintage pickup spec. Not saying bad pickups, infact very nice sounding and still retain that vintage tone. I can understand why they ditched lower DCR pickups in favour of higher ones. Mass production and the fact that 17k sounds better in split. However, they should advertise that on their site. Its a bit misleading. Anywho, loving the guitars regardless and will be doing demo videos for both soon
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3,457 posts
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Post by LeoThunder on Aug 19, 2018 2:50:49 GMT
I watch such videos just because the pictures on the Thomann site aren't faithful. The colours are always somewhat off and the resolution is low so videos show me the real thing, provided the light conditions are appropriate. All I really need are good stills, but an unboxing can be good enough. Another reason is that there have been changes over time and the new products do not always look like the old pictures.
The G string is a common problem on all Gibson shaped headstocks, allegedly because of the angle. I don't understand this, by the way, since the D and G strings have the least angle, but people say that string is the worst to keep in tune. There must be some more complex reason why that size of string is more likely to cause problems. Lubricating the nut or installing a String Butler might be the better solution. Do tuners ever fail to keep tuning? I doubt it, unless maybe the absolute cheapest sort. They can be more or less smooth, precise, hard to use or regular in their action but I never had one that let its string slip away when I'm not looking. Temperature variations do that and then all strings need tuning up or down. It can go both ways.
I used to have an older SC-Custom with Wilkinsons. They were terrible and I ended up selling it. I couldn't get any high end out of them, no matter how far I took them down. The guitar sounded better unplugged, so it wasn't the strings. The Thomann site now states Roswell with coil split but I remember the latter part wasn't there recently. They seem to have been slow in updating it, which is not exactly helpful. The old model had no coil split, by the way and I suppose this is a serious improvement. Mine weighed 4Kg, which is not too heavy for a Les Paul shape (more volume from that rounded bottom).
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Post by DerAlex on Aug 19, 2018 7:21:51 GMT
If you like the guitars you can replace the pickups with ones from a fellow Canadian: www.vineham.comCraig winds fantastic PUs which in my book are incredible price/performance. I have the Whiskey Burner set in my SC550 and it screams Classic Rock. I immediately felt like Jimmy Page with the first riffs of „Whole lotta love“. I have a P90 from him in my Junior and some more sets on the way. And my usual advice with HBs: replace the cheap chinese electrics (pots/caps) which costs <20 EUR and is a great upgrade. 50s wiring I like very much but there is some controversy here. Itös quite easy to change to Modern wiring though.
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dtjesus
Harley Benton Club Junior Member
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Post by dtjesus on Aug 19, 2018 8:16:53 GMT
@leo Thunder I used to have Wilkies in my Vintage guitar years and years ago. I believe 15 years ago. Back then I think Trevor Wilkinson was involved with Vintage guitars and they were being made by a company called JHS. Beautiful sounding guitars. Sounds like the quality went down when they outsourced the manufacturing perhaps.
I'll try lubricating the nut and see if that works.
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dtjesus
Harley Benton Club Junior Member
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Post by dtjesus on Aug 19, 2018 8:19:58 GMT
If you like the guitars you can replace the pickups with ones from a fellow Canadian: www.vineham.comCraig winds fantastic PUs which in my book are incredible price/performance. Thanks. I didn't know there were pickup maker in Canada. Thats awesome. Just checking out his line. Seem to be quite a variety of pickups. I just replaced the bridge pickup with one of my own modded Alnico II and its sounding way better already.
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3,457 posts
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Post by LeoThunder on Aug 19, 2018 8:38:31 GMT
I used to have Wilkies in my Vintage guitar years and years ago. I believe 15 years ago. Back then I think Trevor Wilkinson was involved with Vintage guitars and they were being made by a company called JHS. Beautiful sounding guitars. Sounds like the quality went down when they outsourced the manufacturing perhaps. Maybe they got cheaper ones but the reason that was given for moving to Roswell was that they discovered they had been sourcing fake Wilkinsons and could not make sure it would stop from happening. Maybe that's what I had. I have an ST-62 with Wilkinsons and they sound very good.
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3,968 posts
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Post by salteedog on Aug 19, 2018 11:57:42 GMT
Welcome - I had similar confusion with the pickups in my CST-24T. They advertised them as Wilkinsons but the pups on the guitar are Roswells. I suspected they were supposed to be Roswell HAFs but the DCR on the bridge pickup was considerably higher than the specs on the Roswell site. My neck read 8.5K DCR and Bridge 16.6K DCR. I now suspect the Roswell specs are incorrect. Both pups sound great though so I'm not going to change them. theharleybentonclub.proboards.com/post/35413/threadI also have Wilkinson Alnico 5 PAF pickups stripped from a Vintage LP in another of my guitar and they are darker sounding pickups for sure. No complaints about them either.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 19, 2018 16:07:54 GMT
Roswell might be as inconsistent as the newer versions of Wilkinson pups! Some people have Roswells that sound awesome and others (like me) get those that sound awful!
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3,457 posts
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Post by LeoThunder on Aug 19, 2018 16:47:21 GMT
Some people have Roswells that sound awesome and others (like me) get those that sound awful! I'm pretty sure taste in pick-ups and demands to them are the most inconsistent thing here. I would rephrase the above in "some find a pick-up awesome and others find it awful". Now, I'm certain there is a level at which a pick-up can be called objectively bad. Beyond this, you get a battle between some rather neutral things (probably the objective best, with broadest and flattest frequency spectrum) and a crowd of "coloured" pick-ups with their own "character" which enthusiasts will sort out in their own way along personal preferences (hot, warm, vintage and whatever funny qualifiers they will come up with). Think of it as diluted whisky cut with cheap vodka, some refined, neutral blended for the all-rounders and a full array of single malts from Islay to Orkney via the Highlands (I love my Lagavullin as much as my Macallan). I guess the Roswells in the ST-62 are that blended thing that does just the job as it should (from what I heard in demos) while the Vision Strats have the shady stuff. I haven't bought a blended whisky in 30 years and my last bottle of Jack Daniels was hidden in a litre of coke smuggled in some heavy metal festival friends had taken me to. One day I hope I'll get the chance to check out the good stuff so I can hear what it's all about.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 19, 2018 19:47:04 GMT
Leo most if not ALL demos of these pups are done through multi processor units and not through a decent amp. I could make even my cheap china alnicos sound great through my Digitech RP70 but as soon I plug them into a tube amp (Bugera) they sounded as muddy as the Roswell pups. Bottom line; you will not be able to use these live! BTW, my Irnostone ST and TE + DiMarzio sound great into my Bugera V55.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 19, 2018 19:51:18 GMT
I just read about a Vineham pickup that was described as having 'creamy treble'. What is that? I would describe my Ironstone bridge pup the same! Very pleasant treble which more often than not can be very sharp in the bridge position on Teles and Strats. And trust me this is not something tone knob can fix. Sure it can muddy it down but we are talking about something else here, when your pup is on full on tone and still the treble is pleasing. Maybe EQ pedal could fix this problem of harsh sounding pups. Lets not forget that not all people HEAR THE SAME! Some are more sensitive than others. There could well be a difference that those less sensitive can't hear.
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3,457 posts
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Post by LeoThunder on Aug 20, 2018 1:25:17 GMT
I just read about a Vineham pickup that was described as having 'creamy treble'. What is that? I would describe my Ironstone bridge pup the same! Very pleasant treble which more often than not can be very sharp in the bridge position on Teles and Strats. And trust me this is not something tone knob can fix. Sure it can muddy it down but we are talking about something else here, when your pup is on full on tone and still the treble is pleasing. Maybe EQ pedal could fix this problem of harsh sounding pups. Lets not forget that not all people HEAR THE SAME! Some are more sensitive than others. There could well be a difference that those less sensitive can't hear. It is more about making sense of metaphors. They are ambiguous by nature so people guess what they want in them. It's like a taster describing wine. It impresses believers more than it conveys information. That Strat bridge I would not so much describe as harsh but as "ducky". It reminds me of Donald Duck. Or of vinegar. Harsh is something further up the frequency range, like the grinding of steel. I have an Ibanez which can produce piercing highs with all its pick-ups. That's harsh. Or maybe stingy is the right word. To me. How I come to associate a noiseless event (stinging) or a taste (vinegar) with a sound is anybody's guess and anybody's interpretation is likely to be different from mine unless they learn from example what I mean. If all they have is some text I wrote, they have no idea what I want to say. A warm sound is the crackling of fire, right?
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3,457 posts
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Post by LeoThunder on Aug 20, 2018 4:10:55 GMT
Leo most if not ALL demos of these pups are done through multi processor units and not through a decent amp. I could make even my cheap china alnicos sound great through my Digitech RP70 but as soon I plug them into a tube amp (Bugera) they sounded as muddy as the Roswell pups. Bottom line; you will not be able to use these live! BTW, my Irnostone ST and TE + DiMarzio sound great into my Bugera V55. There is no such thing as "a decent guitar amp". They are inherently flawed electronics. They were originally by nature, they are now on purpose but a guitar amplifier is to the guitar sound what wine is to grape juice. Then, those "processor units" model exactly these flaws, so they can be trusted to produce something equivalent to the amplifiers they copy, just like a CD player can render a recording. Of course the digital processor has more flexibility but it cannot create missing clarity. If a tube amp swallows it, that's a flaw of the amp. What I now read from your experience is that Ironstone and Dimarzio pick-ups are specially designed to compensate the flaws of some guitar amplifiers. Using cheap China alnicos and Digitech was cheaper for the same result, it seems ("sound great").
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dtjesus
Harley Benton Club Junior Member
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Post by dtjesus on Aug 20, 2018 5:29:08 GMT
Welcome - I had similar confusion with the pickups in my CST-24T. They advertised them as Wilkinsons but the pups on the guitar are Roswells. I suspected they were supposed to be Roswell HAFs but the DCR on the bridge pickup was considerably higher than the specs on the Roswell site. My neck read 8.5K DCR and Bridge 16.6K DCR. I now suspect the Roswell specs are incorrect. Both pups sound great though so I'm not going to change them. theharleybentonclub.proboards.com/post/35413/threadI also have Wilkinson Alnico 5 PAF pickups stripped from a Vintage LP in another of my guitar and they are darker sounding pickups for sure. No complaints about them either. Same case as mine. Neck 8+K and Bridge 16+K. I think instead of LAF's, they are now installing LPSA's instead. Roswell LPSA
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