Harley Benton DC-JR Electric Guitar - How Good is it Really? 

This guitar rocks! Ric and I will get some live clips of these up on the channel soon! Check out the Harley Benton LPJRLH Double Cut - bit.ly/2XCBecT (affiliate link)

From Leo: Jazz guys have done great things with a single dog ear P-90 for decades, except we run it up against the neck, as warm as possible. The new Harley Benton looks like a fun guitar for those who like a little harder drive in the tone. Once again, rediscovery of the old ways with new playing makes an interesting combination.

Seems Harley Benton gives the don't make them like they used to a whole other meaning. The value for money is pretty incredible.

The tone pot is probably a “right handed” pot. I had the same problem with my MIM Strat. I replaced the pots, and it functioned as it should. For those folks intimidated by trying that, I am a novice and was able to do it. Just take lots of pics at each step for reference, and you will be fine. Also, cover your guitar with a cloth in case of solder splatter.

This channel is a great public service. You do good work. Respect.

Good demo of that one Shane. I hope the fires are not effecting you to bad - or at all for that matter a real tragedy.

I don't think you get enough thanks for showcasing lefty models, so thanks man!

Sheesh that sounds fantastic, I’m tempted to get one and keep it in open G.

I have this guitar on my wish list!!! I like that it’s a simple one pickup guitar that sounds great. Hopefully we can get a live clip of you playing this guitar!! Cheers Shane!!🎸🎸🎼🎵

I love Jr's. I think every guitar player should have one. I don't like wrap around bridges though. Hamer makes a much better double cut Jr that has a TOM and stop tailpiece. The P90 on the Hamer Jr sounds fantastic as well.

Got my lefty a couple of days ago, and the pots on mine are smooth as silk, taper really well. And get this - left hand knobs so the numbers go up as the volume / tone does!! Never bought a guitar so cheap that’s so good.

Great review Shane, got to love the simplicity, the fact it’s affordable and plays well is a big tick in my opinion.👍👍

Bought one of these because of your video with Dr Rick, Shane, and after four weeks of playing I'm still totally stoked with it. The far more expensive guitars in the studio are getting a rest because I can't keep my fingers off the HB DC Jr. Such great value!

I had a Gordon Smith single cut lefty sold it bad mistake thanks for this review Shane will be ordering one these and thanks to the other guys who have posted about the tone control mod

Love Harley Benton guitars so great value for money. And love the fact that they have such a good range for lefties! Just got a lefty jazz bass and it’s pretty amazing for the price.

Cool change of pace playing style wise

Just got one.... Yes it is this good.... Love it.. Fantastic... All the best to you and yours from North Nottinghamshire UK

You got me sold on this guitar. I have seen several different reviews on this model and I like them all. It looks great, sounds great. I love single pickup guitars and it is a good price. My favorite is the Pelham Metallic Blue model.

tone pot. if you want to play with the tone knob in order to do the "acoustic sound" or in general to shape the sound further, you need to wire it the '50's way'. if you don't it just acts like a normal tone control and darkens the tone only. it's an easy mod and i recommend it for that guitar. btw. i have that guitar

I have the SC version and I dig it. A pretty good guitar for $200ish (US).

Might be worth swapping out that tone pot for a reverse log, type C, one? I've done this on a few of my lefty guitars, works everytime to bring in the proper functionality of a tone control.

Hey Shane, great demo. As regards the pot, it is a right-handed pot wired lefty (counter-clockwise meaning up). This wiring makes pot tapers almost unusable. Even Fender does this to us lefties. When you reverse the wiring to standard righty (clockwise meaning up), the taper will be normal, not just an on/off switch.

Didn’t have a problem with regards to the tone control on mine played through Peavey valve amp. I did swop out wraparound bridge for a Goto straight drop in swop not expensive and intonation spot on. My verdict for this guitar absolutely spot on nails it for me every time no issues at all can’t believe how much cheaper than the Gibo which I’ve now sold so I can buy another few H Bs with the cash. You know it makes sense, unless your looking at long term investment. I just want to play a quality instrument and my Harley Bentons do everything I ask for

Great demo, mate. I'm a lefty myself. I have a green PRS se, as do you. I also play a harley benton JA60 jazzmaster type. I gig with these guitars regularly. I'm interested in this guitar, as I believe its a good idea to play a guitar with one pickup, from time to time. It would make you focus on your playing and not switching between pickups. You only have the vol and tone to shape your sound, and I think thats not a bad thing. I'm going to buy myself one of these guitars in the next few weeks. They ( harley benton ) appear to have discontinued the cherry red/mahogany version. But, oh well, the TV yellow looks great anyway. Keep up the good work. Cheers n Beers..!! M.C.

Nice and husky with the DSL profile. I like the adjustable bridge and a nice looking pick guard. Just looks clean. Interesting that they now have their branded stamped tuners. The buttons work on this.

I have their strat copy and the pots work the same way. I'm going to change them to reverse taper audio. HB are not alone in doing this. I was impressed that The lefty Pacifica come with C pots as standard. I used to just play on 10, but now i can see the benefit of having the correct taper.

Seems Rock Solid. Give me a righty in Cherry. Joey Alves, Yesterday And Today Debut album in '76 changed my life.

Best demo of this guitar, but in your hands everything sounds great. Thank you !

So I got one based on your review. I LOVE IT. The volume and tone controls work great. Tone has a full range taper. Must have just been the one you got, because mine is also a lefty. I’m almost embarrassed at how much I love this cheap guitar. I am replacing the bridge with a lower profile one from Stewmac. Maybe a bone nut but nothing else. 5 stars

Sounds awesome, glad you finally got your hands on a lefty!

lol you must have some connection to me! Every time i go axe hunting on the budget line, you drop a vid of exactly what im lookin at! GREAT playing to sport p90! Rock on Shane!

Love the guitar and your playing is absolutely incredible. Subbed.

Hey Shane. Great review and also great playing. I think your playing on this vid shows that you're no one trick pony. Very cool sounds.

Cool Shane, right at 1:30 mark I thought, Steely Dan? I thought you were going to play some of one of their songs. Great tones!

That opening lic sounded GREAT !!!!

AWESOME SOUNDING GUITAR !! I OWN 12 HARLEY BENTONS !! THEY ALL PLAY AND SOUND GOOD !! GREAT FOR THE $$

Sounds like your tone pot is a regular right handed logarithmic pot that's wired up lefty so the scoop is going the wrong way. How is the tone pot on the righty that Ric played?

Great Review Shane. I've been waiting for this one. I have ordered the lefty single cut for now and will get a DC when they are in stock. Re the issue with the tone pot. I find this all the time with left guitars where they use regular log pots but wire them in reverse. It's one of the problems faced by left handed guitarists. I usually change then so they taper correctly. You can get reverse log pots though.

I actually like the Roswell pickups so much I bought a neck position P90 for my next guitar kit.

Holy shit ....your playing has come on massively!

Out of stock: thanks a lot Shane! On the other han, @199 new...the second this thing is back in stock i'm ordering one + a decent cts pot.

My buddy has one and it sounds as good as it plays. Harley Benton hit this one out of the Park!

Killin it Shane!

Looks like a pretty cool, simple rock n roll machine man! Dig the double cutaway! Fun demo! 🤙🏻🎸🎼

Hey I feel jipped! Lol. What's going on Shane? That's not the usual. Intro....lol 👍. I like the wood grain on this one and the best I've heard this inexpensive guitar sound on RU-vid to date!!! Shane ROCKED this!

I really like what Epiphone is doing this year with releasing some sweet guitars and updating their headstock. But you still can’t beat Harley Benton’s value for money. I’d like to get one of the Junior models this year. The SC550 that I currently play is great quality and frankly better than Gibson’s low end offerings like the Tribute.

One Yank Pete , prolly a 3way Peavey Amp lover from 4 years ago - gave this vid the thumps down 👎... Imo, subjective I kno, but this was a decent review, and the $200 guitar killed. Great job too InTheBlues

Don't forget clean tones! Actual clean tones, not just volume rolled off.

I've been thinking seriously about this guitar. I really like the simplicity and sound of the single P90.

Between my buddy and I we own 24 Harley Bentons. They are all worth every Penny!!!

Shane. See if they will send the FAT version. I would love to see you demo and hear your thoughts

I’ve been looking at upper fret access lately (not a big feature on my single cut Gretsch) - that double cut looks like the upper frets are screaming ‘Look at me, look at me’!

Sean, you are sooooo, left handed, in a good way!

I have absolutely nothing bad to say about Harley Benton guitars.Especially some of the pro series with stainless steel frets,an allen rod adjustment through a wheel at the bottom of the neck where the neck tenon,meets the body.

This sounds Fuc**** great !

I'd like to hear that through a blue stripe Peavey Bandit , Special,Back Stage 208 Chorus,or Studio Chorus 210

Yay, tyhe lefties appear to be in stock. Nice companion for my TE 90QM!

How could you not want this guitar?!

Nice video. Waiting for faded cherry fat neck harley benton dc:)

Sounds Ok from here Shano.👍

A lot of these guitars are unreal - mahogany bodies and necks, etc. for under 200 bucks, sometime a bit over $100. The body alone is worth 3 times that. It's a real good thing and you can surely make that guitar sound as good as you like!

Cool review! I will wait for the red one with p100 - you might have seen the prototype...

They probably don't have a reverse taper tone pot in there, hence why there's not much difference. Easy fix for not much money if you're a lefty, but I reckon it would function normally if you're a righty. They look and sound pretty good though

Thinking of getting one of these Harley Benton cheapies so that I can have a guitar set up with higher action for slide playing - maybe this or the tele TE-90FLT Wish HB made a two pickup LP special in lefty though

From your description of the tone pot operation, it appears that a different value capacitor would change that.

I've had one on order from Thomann for getting om 7 months their saying they will have them back in on the 1/11/21, nearly there. I want one so i can put me Gibson away, a second i can use and give the Gibbo some respite.

Hi Shane- great review as always. Can you describe the neck? I can't play the old 50's Gibson fat neck- my main guitar is a Schecter C-1 with a narrow, thin C-shaped neck. Think Squier Affinity neck. Any feedback would be appreciated!

Just sent back a brand new Gibson DC tribute and bought one of these. With the exception of the pickups, the HB is a better built guitar. “Cheap” Gibson’s just aren’t worth it to me just now when the QC is so shakey

I have heard that the pickup is too far away from the strings and you won't get the best out of it unless you put a shim under it to raise it a tad, in case anyone else is thinking of getting one reads this.

$199.39 USa. HArd to argue with that.

Nice demo as always mate l 😎🎸🎼

Hey Shane, love your videos. If you’ve still got any of the righty Juniors you got sent a while back I’d be happy to take one off your hands I’m also from Melbourne myself

Good review! But wouldn't be surprised if they Pleked it before they sent it to you. Maybe have a friend order one and review that.

Amazing playing

With the tone control, is it just the taper they're using, or the cap? I really like the adjustable bridge intonation, it's a must with wraparounds, which is putting me off the new Epiphones that have the old bridges. Looks like the perfect Junior!

Glad they finally managed to sent you a lefty ;-)

Shane what would fix the tone control problem best? Can you recommend a type of pot or anything that you found works really well for that problem?

not bad at all for the money , great playing, defintely a beater!!!!!

Dang it, now I've seen three videos on this HB DC and everybody loves em. I'm gonna have to get one now. I'm one of those dumb a$$es that bought the Gibson DC last year. A lot of money for not alota guitar. I dig it though, one of my go to's for sure... Thanks man, you rock buddy!!! 🎸🤓🎸🇺🇸☮

Great specs I just hate the colour and I'm not usually fussy about colours....... still might get one though😂

Between these and the new FF models, we as guitar players have some great choices for these guitars. This one is on my radar?

PLAY some NY Dolls! It will give you a Personality Crisis! OI OI OI! \m/!

Touch of the Lenny Kravitz about that opening riff. Cool

WOW looks & sounds awesome !!

The thing with the tone pot is that It must to be reverse audio, cause you are lefty.

you cant buy them in Australia unless you pay $211 delivery.. Unfortunately that brings it up to the price of an Epiphone. the others have Bolt on necks.. Bummer

Great Job Mate..Cheers

Shane, do you think they just used right hand taper log pots? I'm sure you know this is typical BS on most lefty guitars. Then again, I wonder how many of your collection have the correct pots in them. How many have you changed yourself? After playing for over thirty years, I'm just finally fixing the issue on many of my lefty guitars.

I have a right handed faded blue one of these. In reference to your comments about the sound cleaning up - the tone control pot on mine is an Alpha 500K 15% curve log, but the volume is an RF brand 500K linear. Now I know I will probably get all sorts of flack about this but I have yet to be convinced there is any reason to use anything but log law pots in either position. Theory would seem to suggest that if the action of the guitar controls is to sound smooth they should be log pots. However I am wondering if there is any advantage to using a linear volume control when distortion is used. After all distortion 'compresses' the dynamic range so the normal volume changes don't apply and a linear volume may give more fine control of how much dirt is in the sound. Unfortunately as far as left handed versions of this guitar are concerned I haven't had one to measure, but as another poster mentions, controls on left handed guitars are often log wired left handed rather than anti-log wired left handed. I suppose that might be another reason for the use of a linear volume, you can wire it either way round and the control curve doesn't change. It's worth shimming the P90 on these, from the factory it is a long way from the strings and given the P90 propensity for hum pickup, a stronger signal really helps.

How about an A-B-C shootout covering sound/tone using HB-Epiphone-Gibson versions?

Damn; it actually sounds great

Great review Shane. Is there any way to alter the height of the pickup?

This is the biggest question in some of these demos: do I like the sound of the guitar or do I just like the sound of the guitarist?

Sounds great!!

If you AB'd with a real one you'd see the massive sound gap......but if I paid to swap out the hardware, the pickup, the body, and the neck it would definitely sound awesome

Please see if they will send you the FAT version. I can’t decide which to get.

I wonder how much setting up the guitar needed prior to shooting the video? Most guitars of this price point need the intonation adjusted, string & pickup height etc set. Did this require such work??

Might want to replace the cap to get a better tone response?

Have you tried the Artist Ap58j yet Shane,🇦🇺👍🍻

I want one! However the AUS link fo Thomann quotes them at AU$298 + AU$80 shipping. It also says the prices are inc. V.A.T. Surely this is not included for Oz as we pay GST. If so it's starting to look more expensive. Any thoughts out there as I've never bought a HB before?