That was easy - Harley Benton Fusion III T series Guitar
On a lark, I bought a Harley Benton guitar. The shipping wasn't cheap, but it came fast, and first impressions are impressive
NGD came earlier than I expected. On Sunday I was curious after reading about these amazingly spec’d, very inexpensive guitars. The brand sounds hokey, “Harley Benton” and it is the house brand of Thomann Music, a German company.
I narrowed it down to a Telecaster shape, and I knew I wanted a fixed bridge, and I prefer humbuckers to single coils. That got me into the Fusion series, and I ended up with the Fusion-T HH HT Roasted DB. But what the fuck does that mean?
As I mentioned it is one of their Fusion series. The ‘-T’ is for the Telecaster style body. Next, the HH means the pickup configuration, so it is two humbuckers (bridge and neck), and the HT is for hard tail bridge. That is in contrast to a tremolo bridge.
I like the color. It is a soft pastel blue, with a matte finish, and no pick guard.
Build quality is high. The reviews raving about the attention to detail are all correct. The fret ends are well dressed (if I had to compare to the Charvel next to it, they are a wee bit better.) The neck feels like a modern Fender “D” profile neck. It is not uncomfortable, but definitely not as thin as the Charvel’s neck. It feels good in the hands.
The neck joint is very well contoured and it feels great when you play up high.
More on the neck, it does have stainless steel frets, something that you have to spend 4X to get on a Fender. It has a 12” radius, and it feels really comfortable doing 1 and 1 & 1/2 step bends.
It came strung with 10 gauge strings, and I prefer 9’s so that will be one thing to change.
The body is made of a wood called Natayo (Yamaha calls this Nato) and it is LIGHT. Probably 2 pounds lighter than the Charvel. It has cutouts to make it conform to your body and hand, something that my Fender Tele didn’t have.
Speaking of the neck, it is thicker than the Charvel (the key benefit of the Charvel is a wicked fast, thin neck with a compound fingerboard radius. The Fusion III has a traditional Fender profile, a “D” shape, it is thicker than I am used to, but not terrible (some 60’s vintage Fenders feel like you are gripping a friggin’ baseball bat!)
The neck is Canadian Maple, roasted or carmelized (that seems to be the latest fad) and nicely figured. Seriously, the pictures do not do it justice, it looks about as nice as an Ernie Ball Music Man, a guitar that costs well north of $3K.
As mentioned above, it is a hard tail, with the strings fed through the bridge to the back of guitar. This is just like the Tele I had, and it was stone easy to keep it in tune. So far, this has been pretty solid in holding its tune.
It arrived on Wednesday, and I let it sit for a couple of days to acclimate to our environment before giving it a good try. I did tune it and hang it on my wall, and a couple of slight tweaks of tuning, but today, 4 days later, it is rock stable.
The Setup
A key attribute in any guitar is how well it is set up. How high the action is, the dressing and level of the frets, is the truss rod set to give the proper relief, and how the intonation is set.
The action is about a millimeter, just about perfect to me, the relief is set well, no change in the truss rod needed. It is super comfortable to play. No fret buzz anywhere, and the 12” radius of the fretboard makes it a breeze to do medium to large bends without fretting out. In short, for a “budget” guitar, out of the box, it is not only very playable, but it feels pretty good.
Whenever I buy a guitar, I budget $80 or so to take it to a local luthier to do a setup. That can make a no-name knockoff instrument feel and play like an instrument that costs much more. But I am not feeling the need to do this at the present time. It is that good out of the box!
Amazing.
It isn’t all unicorns and Skittles
But, it is not perfect. For $369, there are some cost cutting efforts. The finish on my guitar is flawless, but from the reviews, there can be some very minor blemishes. The finish is matte. That is becoming more and more common. Not my favorite, but it isn’t a deal breaker. For budget guitars this makes a lot of sense. To get a deep high-gloss finish takes many coats, sanding in between coats, and time with a polishing wheel. For the price, I can live with the matte finish.
The pickups sound pretty solid, but I like there to be more difference between the neck and the bridge. The neck does roll off the highs but not as much as I expect. This isn’t terrible as I mostly play with the bridge pickup, and the tone pot dialed all the way up. But I do like to roll off the highs with the tone, and fattening up the mids for bluesy stuff, and some of the jazzier sounding things I play.
Furthermore, the tone pot doesn’t have that much of an effect. Yes, there is some attenuation, but I am used to there being more juice there.
The pickup selector switch is a 3 position switch, bridge, bridge+neck, and neck. In the center position (the bridge+neck) pulling up the tone pot splits the tap on the pickups, effectively making it two single coil pickups.
The pickups themselves are Harley Benton “Roswell’s”, hum buckers, and the consensus is they sound similar to Seymour Duncan’s. Honestly, they are just fine. I might rewire it (changing capacitors in the tone stack can greatly increase the range of tone variations), or maybe I will splurge for a set of EMG Active pickups. Stay tuned.
The tuners are Harley Benton Branded, and they are locking tuners. That means super stable tuning, and easy-peasy string changes. But tuning it up, the tuners are a bit tight, and hard to fine tune. A set of higher ratio tuners might find its way on to this guitar at some date. I will likely play with the tightness of the friction washer in the tuners in the mean time to see if I can get them to be smoother. A nit, but something I am passionate about.
The Frets are stainless steel. This is a huge plus. But, and there’s always a but, they are narrow. My preference is jumbo. These feel like my Tom Anderson, and I am fine with them, but I am a little wistful for the jumbo frets on the Charvel.
That said, the fret ends, and the crowns are impeccably finished. Super attention to detail, and high quality work. Yet, the crown feels a little rough when bending strings. Clearly, the frets could use a polish. Not a ding, as that level of attention to detail takes work, and for a budget guitar, you can get away with cheaping out on that. With a lot of use, they will smooth out on their own, but I will probably take it to a local tech to be polished.
And, that’s it. Minor nits, some personal preference items, but in general, this guitar punches WAY above its weight. The build quality feels like a $900 Fender MIM Tele, yet it costs about 1/3 what you will spend for that MIM1 Fender.
A bargain, by any measure.
Final Thoughts
I really wish that Harley Benton existed when I started playing. The beginner instruments in the 1980s sucked big tool. Low quality, piss poor hardware, and terrible playability was de riguer. Today, those dabbling have an array of the value brands from the majors (Squier by Fender, and Epiphone by Gibson) that are outstanding values. But, I would put the Harley Benton up against any of them 7 days a week. The quality of the hardware, the attention to detail, the build quality are outstanding. The things I do not like (the wiring and tone stack, and the crown finish of the frets) are not deal breakers, easily fixed later, and not detrimental to just plugging in and playing.
I do have a few upgrades I am eyeing, a set of EMG active pickups will greatly punch this up, better tuners will improve the feel and tenability (higher ratio and smoother action), and a trip to the luthier to polish the frets.
That is it. This is an amazing guitar for the money, and it punches WAY above its weight. For $369, it is a no brainer.
Will it replace my Charvel, or my Anderson? No.
Will it be a fun project to get it perfect for me? Oh hell yeah.
It is a great time to get into guitar.
Made in Mexico - probably the best value in Fender instruments, the Mexican factory and technicians consistently turn out outstanding quality instruments at a decent price.
Great article! I’ve had my eyes on Charvel’s Pro-Mod So-Cal Style 2 24 HT HH. But I realize that Harley Benton’s offer great value for a fraction of the price. I can’t decide. How do you like your charvel? Have you made any posts about it?
Also, I always thought smaller gauge strings sounded a bit treble-y and twangy and articulate (I prefer this sound), but maybe that’s because they’re easier to dig in harder with a pick, like you allude to. Who knows!
Glad to hear it meets with your approval overall. Are ten-gauge strings larger or smaller than nines? Does a change like that affect the tone?