NBD Harley Benton Marquess-4

[stewblack]

Arrived on Friday afternoon, gigged later that evening.

Not much to say, I am no longer surprised at the utter quality of Thomann's house brand. A really comfortable bass to play, light as a feather, great sound, stayed in tune - kind of ticks all the boxes 

[MrSpace]

Looks great too 😀. Enjoy the new bass. 

[stewblack]

10 minutes ago, MrSpace said:

Looks great too 😀. Enjoy the new bass. 

Thank you

[Chienmortbb]

I assume it won't fall over if you lean it agin the wall. Seriously I nearly bought one of those but went for a Marcus Miller M2 instead. I will be posting a long term review of it later but would be interested in your initial thoughts on the HB.

 

The problems with new basses, expensive or not, usually have the following:

 

Action too high

Nut slots too high

 

Cheaper basses often have sloppy machine heads and on the HB LP I bought this was certainly the case. Apart from that it is a superb guitar.

 

Anyway I will post a link to the M2  review on this thread once I publish it and look forward to your longer term thoughts on the Marquis.

[stewblack]

30 minutes ago, Chienmortbb said:

Action too high

Nut slots too high

 

Cheaper basses often have sloppy machine heads

Action is entirely a matter of personal taste so I can't comment but I never have a problem with the out of box set up on a Harley B. Never touched a nut slot on them either. Never had a machine head problem.

The action on this one was a tad high for me, trussrod tweaked and away I went.

[Chienmortbb]

I agree that action is a letter of taste but it should not be adjusted with the truss rod. The truss rod is to adjust the relief. Action is adjusted by adjusting the height of the bridge saddles. 
 

[Geek99]

How many basses do you actually own @stewblack? Do you fall over them when answering the door ? Do you create space by burning the ones you don’t like as much in order to save on gas CH?

[Baloney Balderdash]

On 26/06/2022 at 12:27, Chienmortbb said:

I assume it won't fall over if you lean it agin the wall. Seriously I nearly bought one of those but went for a Marcus Miller M2 instead. I will be posting a long term review of it later but would be interested in your initial thoughts on the HB.

 

The problems with new basses, expensive or not, usually have the following:

 

Action too high

Nut slots too high

 

Cheaper basses often have sloppy machine heads and on the HB LP I bought this was certainly the case. Apart from that it is a superb guitar.

 

Anyway I will post a link to the M2  review on this thread once I publish it and look forward to your longer term thoughts on the Marquis.

 

Everything that has to do with setup I don't even consider a flaw, I would expect to have to do a setup anyway on all new guitars and basses, regardless of price.

 

It's not a matter of a flaw on the actual physical bass, it's exclusively a matter of adjusting stuff that is fully intended to be fully and easily adjustable, without any modifications needed whatsoever, for a reason.

 

You might as well complain about the stock strings not being your preferred type, brand and gauge.

 

It's kind of like complaining about the lit of the ashtray not being closed, or perhaps an even more fitting analogy, the adjustable air condition blades, meant to adjust the direction of the air flow, not being adjusted exactly according to your height and personal preferences, in a brand new car, or something very similar, and adding that as a negative point in your review of it, while really having absolutely nothing to do with the actual car.

 

I never got why people complain about stock strings or anything that is entirely a matter of a proper setup in reviews, it is not useful knowledge, and it tells absolutely nothing about the actual quality of an instrument, in fact rather such a review might distort the impression you get of a bass unrealistically.

 

As for nut slots, they were cut dead on perfect, exactly as low as they could go without becoming an issue, and not one nano mm more or less, on the Harley Benton GuitarBass (Bass VI concept) that I bought recently, my very first Harley Benton instrument, though I realize that was exclusively a matter of pure luck.

 

 

On topic:

 

Congratulations on the bass Stewblack, it looks amazing. 

Edited June 27, 2022 by Baloney Balderdash

[stewblack]

10 hours ago, Geek99 said:

How many basses do you actually own @stewblack? Do you fall over them when answering the door ? Do you create space by burning the ones you don’t like as much in order to save on gas CH?

I have a problem. I admit it. I want to sell some, I really do. I just can't 

[Daz39]

11 hours ago, Geek99 said:

How many basses do you actually own @stewblack? Do you fall over them when answering the door ? Do you create space by burning the ones you don’t like as much in order to save on gas CH?

At current prices of gas it might be cheaper to get some Deko’s on the wood burner!