What you have is NOT a grounding issue and NOT a quality control issue. Non wax potted filtertron pickups are microphonic, and microphonic pickups produce that effect.
The best thing you can do is buy second hand, like I did: I got it cheaper and the previous owner did all the necessary setup 😂 (he even got the nut addressed for heavier strings by a luthier, which I liked). But I think they are easier to get in Europe.
Not really an issue especially since i'm going to change the pickups out, but it's kinda like the Van Halen no brown M&M's thing.. If something that obvious is over looked what DID they actually catch.
@@GearZombieThe filtertrons are what made me buy this guitar. What are you replacing them with? But I agree on the QC issue no doubt. Luckily I can work a screwdriver...
@@alkyhauler8185 I am going to throw some TV Jones Power'Tron's in there, so still staying with the filtertrons but some good ones that shouldn't be as microphonic as these ones.
@@GearZombie Those are awesome pickups. They also cost more than the guitar. A roll of $10 foil tape will eliminate the harmonic issues. Just replacing the pickups will not...
For a child's first electric guitar, you don't want to go all out and then they lose interest. you don't want to get something unplayable, that they think its impossible to learn the guitar. This guitar was a good choice and the kid loved the color. The tuning keys were the weak point for me. I immediately took it to my guitar tech and he put some good tuners on it, set it up with 9s for smaller hands and the guitar is a solid guitar now. It looks great and sounds great. The fact that it even intonates and stays in tune makes it easily worth the price.
Quality control on Harley Benton products is only done by customers, unfortunately. Receiving an okay guitar is just a matter of luck. The prices are good and everyone tries their luck.
QC is crap, I fixed the errors myself, since I didn't want to be worse off, in case I would get a replacement in a worse condition. Tuners are most for show, needs to be replaced.
Thanks for this review. Great playng and performance! I own 8 Harley Benton guitars and am so pleased with most of them. Not as crazy about their 12 string electric. But it's great when you want that 12-string sound. I love the Roswell Filtertron pick-ups.
Thank you for the comment!! I ordered a new set and I'm interested to see how they perform. I do see myself trying another harley benton however, the overall craftsmanship is good enough for me which was the important part, electronics can always be replaced!
About a year ago I bought there Goth Thunderbird bass. I was experimenting with C# tunning with other basses and as a bit of an experiment I bought the Thunderbird, fret ends were not great but like you said you can feel them. Action was to high for me a little bit higher then 2 mm so it took 2 days to tweak truss rod and put thicker gauge strings for tension 50-110. When changing strings cheap plastic nut fell off, put a graph- tech nut and up graded the tunners. Before I got it was thinking about upgrading the pups the Rosswell active pups are not bad, I still might put EMG'S in it but want to finish some other projects. It was about the same price as you $175 nice gigbag and shipping was roughly $265, I'm happy. Just got one of there cheap Telecasters the TE-62 Surfgreen roasted maple neck, fret ends were about the same I fixed that. Same thing with action, 2 days of tweaking and got the action down to were I like it. Both intonation was almost there, again a little tweak. Tunners are better then the Thunderbird. $133 plus shipping and the same quality gigbag there cheapest on both and they are not bad, definitely better then a dust cover, a week in and I'm happy. Just because I want to I am going to put a 6 saddle bridge, it came the old fashion way 3 saddles, 2 strings per saddle and put in a graph- tech nut in and may put a stacked Humbucker in it and a coil split in the bridge. The shipping went up, from about $63 to $82 for a smaller guitar and lighter then the bass. I was a little mad that the shipping went up, but so has everything, thanks Brandon, and it came in 5 days after ordering to N.Y. ordered on a Friday afternoon and came Tuesday afternoon. Like you say, for the money and you can set up your on guitar and do some simple changes and I think it's a good buy. I am really a bass player and more particular about my basses then guitars, I know what a decent bass and guitar from a peice of crap and it's a good buy.
I just received the same guitar and mine too had a few protruding pickup screws. I bought that guitar for the pickups combination and the belly carve. I ditched the neck ( can't stand reverse headstocks) and used my '52 re-issue Fender Hotrod neck instead. Did you notice you got a flame maple neck (lucky!)?
if for some crazy reason you wanted to swap the pickups, P90-style pickups "should" pretty much drop right in, they're "usually" the same size as FilterTrons. YMMV...
Have one in green blast. The pick ip screws were also poorly installed and the slots were stripped. Plus the pickups were sitting very tilted. I took thr scratch plate off and the cavity underneath was very unevenly routed including several big chunks of wood left in place. I'm not keen on the fretboard material, it looks a bit grubby. However it plays and sounds good. I replaced the nut with a Graphtec version and have made an oxidised aluminum custom pickguard for it because the plastic one was cheap and flimsy. We are lucky in Europe that Thomann do free shipping on everything over 200 Euros.
Check out KDH's latest video (which is part 2 of his saga with the same model of HB). You got a better one than did he lol Edit: Nope lol you got the same exact problem. Microphonic p'ups. Wait until you hear what Thomann's response to KDH's exchange request was. I'm subbing btw. You in Canada?
Hey!!! Thank you for the sub! I saw his video today and commented on it. The thing he didn't cover is they are filtertrons which can be more susceptible to noise but, one thing I did different is I demoed mine running my amp direct. He was actually using an amp and cab which actually made his situation worse and also what most people will do! I got my new PU's for mine today and i'm going to work on a new video but first I am going to film like he did with an amp and cab, I bet mine is every bit as bad as his. Sucky thing is, I like that guitar, looks cool and feels good enough. But if someone without knowledge got it they wouldn't know what to do!! BTW Not in Canada, midwest.
@@GearZombie These pick-ups are normally fine but I know they are just screwed in the body over a spring in a piece of foam. Seeing that these are not properly screwed in (high screws) I wonder if this is what allows them to vibrate and become microphonic. Maybe just tightening them would solve the issue - It might require drilling deeper holes in the body.
I've just received the exact same blue burst model it sounds ace just needs a little tic i reckon, i bought a td-40 a couple of months back and it feels more of a quality guitar than this one and it was cheaper. I did notice one of the backplate screws missing and one of the strings was laying ontop of its string tree. The action could be better and the scratch plate just looks cheap and nasty. The tuners were ok not too stiff and it stays in tune pretty well, the volume pot is crap its either on or off it seems. I have not gigged it as yet so we will see how well it holds up, I've gigged the td-40 and its great. I have more expensive guitars but i wanted a couple of guitars that wouldn't break the bank for the style of music I'm playing at the moment. So basically i would change the volume and tone pots,the pickguard maybe the tuners, lower the action and i think it would be a great little guitar.
Seems like ya gotta spend at least $300 to expect any kind of quality control. These guitars are pretty cool looking, but it would suck to get it out the box and be disappointed right away.
Hb is an interesting one for me; I see their value in the slightly more expensive ones (neck throughs, emgs, stainless frets, etc.) But these cheap ones are little more than landfill imo. Loved the review man, good to have you back.
Thank you for watching!!! It's good to be back!!! Honestly, the only real problem with this IMO are the cheap pickups. Sharp fret ends happen and the rest seems solid. But I dunno. My new PU's showed up today. I hope this thing rules after I get it done????
@@tihomirmatkovic7184 Hey! I actually traded some emails with TV Jones and told them what I was going after. They were happy to help and they recommended for me the Power'Tron Neck and Power'Tron Bridge so I ordered them. Keep in mind I am more hard rock so these are supposed to get dirty while still retaining the Filtertron sound. They just got here and I haven't had a chance to wire them up yet. Check back in a bit and we'll see if I can make this Harley Benton scream!
I own two Benton’s, both bought used so can’t comment on their direct qc That being said: I have recently dealt with Thomann, the unboxing is here czcams.com/video/laTzbrF9K2I/video.html
Do you have a Harley Benton??? If you do what has your experience been? Do me a favor and like and subscribe!!!
I have two.
Both have been excellent quality and have been really great value of money.
I'm on my 3rd one. If you can do basic setup they are a diamond in the rough. czcams.com/video/nKeBrWx8BP0/video.html
czcams.com/video/gwuMuio8mEI/video.html
czcams.com/video/7UVh4iH_Iog/video.html
I bought the orange blast. QC on mine was good. I don't hate the pickups either 😀. £159 uk pounds delivered. What's not to like? Buy one.
What you have is NOT a grounding issue and NOT a quality control issue. Non wax potted filtertron pickups are microphonic, and microphonic pickups produce that effect.
The best thing you can do is buy second hand, like I did: I got it cheaper and the previous owner did all the necessary setup 😂 (he even got the nut addressed for heavier strings by a luthier, which I liked). But I think they are easier to get in Europe.
I had the same pickup mounting screw issue with my TE-90FLT. If you can work a phillips screwdriver it's not really an issue.
Not really an issue especially since i'm going to change the pickups out, but it's kinda like the Van Halen no brown M&M's thing.. If something that obvious is over looked what DID they actually catch.
@@GearZombieThe filtertrons are what made me buy this guitar. What are you replacing them with? But I agree on the QC issue no doubt. Luckily I can work a screwdriver...
@@GearZombie I managed to make mine sound ok with a screwdriver lol...czcams.com/video/CYjpDRtcDSo/video.html
@@alkyhauler8185 I am going to throw some TV Jones Power'Tron's in there, so still staying with the filtertrons but some good ones that shouldn't be as microphonic as these ones.
@@GearZombie Those are awesome pickups. They also cost more than the guitar. A roll of $10 foil tape will eliminate the harmonic issues. Just replacing the pickups will not...
For a child's first electric guitar, you don't want to go all out and then they lose interest. you don't want to get something unplayable, that they think its impossible to learn the guitar. This guitar was a good choice and the kid loved the color. The tuning keys were the weak point for me. I immediately took it to my guitar tech and he put some good tuners on it, set it up with 9s for smaller hands and the guitar is a solid guitar now. It looks great and sounds great. The fact that it even intonates and stays in tune makes it easily worth the price.
Those things are SO easy to sort.
Literally...minutes.
😒
Quality control on Harley Benton products is only done by customers, unfortunately.
Receiving an okay guitar is just a matter of luck. The prices are good and everyone tries their luck.
QC is crap, I fixed the errors myself, since I didn't want to be worse off, in case I would get a replacement in a worse condition.
Tuners are most for show, needs to be replaced.
Not true
Thanks for this review. Great playng and performance! I own 8 Harley Benton guitars and am so pleased with most of them. Not as crazy about their 12 string electric. But it's great when you want that 12-string sound. I love the Roswell Filtertron pick-ups.
Thank you for the comment!! I ordered a new set and I'm interested to see how they perform. I do see myself trying another harley benton however, the overall craftsmanship is good enough for me which was the important part, electronics can always be replaced!
@@GearZombie Indeed!
@@GearZombie The Roswell Filtertron pick-ups are licensed to other top-branded guitars as well.
About a year ago I bought there Goth Thunderbird bass. I was experimenting with C# tunning with other basses and as a bit of an experiment I bought the Thunderbird, fret ends were not great but like you said you can feel them. Action was to high for me a little bit higher then 2 mm so it took 2 days to tweak truss rod and put thicker gauge strings for tension 50-110. When changing strings cheap plastic nut fell off, put a graph- tech nut and up graded the tunners. Before I got it was thinking about upgrading the pups the Rosswell active pups are not bad, I still might put EMG'S in it but want to finish some other projects. It was about the same price as you $175 nice gigbag and shipping was roughly $265, I'm happy. Just got one of there cheap Telecasters the TE-62 Surfgreen roasted maple neck, fret ends were about the same I fixed that. Same thing with action, 2 days of tweaking and got the action down to were I like it. Both intonation was almost there, again a little tweak. Tunners are better then the Thunderbird. $133 plus shipping and the same quality gigbag there cheapest on both and they are not bad, definitely better then a dust cover, a week in and I'm happy. Just because I want to I am going to put a 6 saddle bridge, it came the old fashion way 3 saddles, 2 strings per saddle and put in a graph- tech nut in and may put a stacked Humbucker in it and a coil split in the bridge. The shipping went up, from about $63 to $82 for a smaller guitar and lighter then the bass. I was a little mad that the shipping went up, but so has everything, thanks Brandon, and it came in 5 days after ordering to N.Y. ordered on a Friday afternoon and came Tuesday afternoon. Like you say, for the money and you can set up your on guitar and do some simple changes and I think it's a good buy. I am really a bass player and more particular about my basses then guitars, I know what a decent bass and guitar from a peice of crap and it's a good buy.
I just received the same guitar and mine too had a few protruding pickup screws. I bought that guitar for the pickups combination and the belly carve. I ditched the neck ( can't stand reverse headstocks) and used my '52 re-issue Fender Hotrod neck instead. Did you notice you got a flame maple neck (lucky!)?
if for some crazy reason you wanted to swap the pickups, P90-style pickups "should" pretty much drop right in, they're "usually" the same size as FilterTrons. YMMV...
Have one in green blast. The pick ip screws were also poorly installed and the slots were stripped. Plus the pickups were sitting very tilted. I took thr scratch plate off and the cavity underneath was very unevenly routed including several big chunks of wood left in place.
I'm not keen on the fretboard material, it looks a bit grubby.
However it plays and sounds good.
I replaced the nut with a Graphtec version and have made an oxidised aluminum custom pickguard for it because the plastic one was cheap and flimsy.
We are lucky in Europe that Thomann do free shipping on everything over 200 Euros.
Why you replaced graph tech nut with the graph tech nut?...
Check out KDH's latest video (which is part 2 of his saga with the same model of HB).
You got a better one than did he lol
Edit: Nope lol you got the same exact problem. Microphonic p'ups.
Wait until you hear what Thomann's response to KDH's exchange request was.
I'm subbing btw. You in Canada?
Hey!!! Thank you for the sub! I saw his video today and commented on it. The thing he didn't cover is they are filtertrons which can be more susceptible to noise but, one thing I did different is I demoed mine running my amp direct. He was actually using an amp and cab which actually made his situation worse and also what most people will do! I got my new PU's for mine today and i'm going to work on a new video but first I am going to film like he did with an amp and cab, I bet mine is every bit as bad as his. Sucky thing is, I like that guitar, looks cool and feels good enough. But if someone without knowledge got it they wouldn't know what to do!! BTW Not in Canada, midwest.
@@GearZombie These pick-ups are normally fine but I know they are just screwed in the body over a spring in a piece of foam. Seeing that these are not properly screwed in (high screws) I wonder if this is what allows them to vibrate and become microphonic. Maybe just tightening them would solve the issue - It might require drilling deeper holes in the body.
I've just received the exact same blue burst model it sounds ace just needs a little tic i reckon, i bought a td-40 a couple of months back and it feels more of a quality guitar than this one and it was cheaper.
I did notice one of the backplate screws missing and one of the strings was laying ontop of its string tree. The action could be better and the scratch plate just looks cheap and nasty.
The tuners were ok not too stiff and it stays in tune pretty well, the volume pot is crap its either on or off it seems.
I have not gigged it as yet so we will see how well it holds up, I've gigged the td-40 and its great.
I have more expensive guitars but i wanted a couple of guitars that wouldn't break the bank for the style of music I'm playing at the moment.
So basically i would change the volume and tone pots,the pickguard maybe the tuners, lower the action and i think it would be a great little guitar.
might mini humbuckers fit?
Seems like ya gotta spend at least $300 to expect any kind of quality control. These guitars are pretty cool looking, but it would suck to get it out the box and be disappointed right away.
59C
did you ever install the tv jones?
Hb is an interesting one for me; I see their value in the slightly more expensive ones (neck throughs, emgs, stainless frets, etc.) But these cheap ones are little more than landfill imo.
Loved the review man, good to have you back.
Thank you for watching!!! It's good to be back!!! Honestly, the only real problem with this IMO are the cheap pickups. Sharp fret ends happen and the rest seems solid. But I dunno. My new PU's showed up today. I hope this thing rules after I get it done????
@@GearZombie look forward to seeing how the new pickups improve it. Good stuff brother.
Landfill???
Let me guess...youre 14? 😒
@@GearZombie what model of TV Jones tho? im thinkin of gettin te90flt and get a set of TV Jones myself XD
@@tihomirmatkovic7184 Hey! I actually traded some emails with TV Jones and told them what I was going after. They were happy to help and they recommended for me the Power'Tron Neck and Power'Tron Bridge so I ordered them. Keep in mind I am more hard rock so these are supposed to get dirty while still retaining the Filtertron sound. They just got here and I haven't had a chance to wire them up yet. Check back in a bit and we'll see if I can make this Harley Benton scream!
I own two Benton’s, both bought used so can’t comment on their direct qc
That being said: I have recently dealt with Thomann, the unboxing is here
czcams.com/video/laTzbrF9K2I/video.html
**middle pickup**
Skol,,,it plays like the Vikings,, unpredictable sometimes it's good n then always fall short
SKOL!!!!!! And a perfect description of the Vikings and the Harley Benton!!!