Harley Benton HBB30NT

I just bought the 5-string version from Thomann.de and I'm beyond satisfaction with this gal. (HBB35NT) She's a 24-fret acoustic bass with piezzoelectric preamp, it has a cutaway, and made of laminated wood.

This is my seventh guitar. I never sell a guitar once bought, so this one's gonna stay as well.

I wanted this one cause I just fell in love with acoustic basses, and I just had to have the largest one available :-))) I mainly use it for home practice, but I'm planning to do a jam with a jazz drummer friend o'mine and I'll plug it in then. So far plugged and unplugged sounds... I can only tell good stories bout sound, both plugged and unplugged. Been surprised how loud it is when unplugged. IMHO, jazz is the most suitable style for this bass.

Unlike many others I prefer roundwound and the most thick Fender-strings, but sp far I haven't changed the strings that the bas came with. But they're nice roundwound strings, some find the finger-noise annoying, but I'm addicted to it... call me a freak, but that's my taste.

Out of the box the only two strings I had to tune were the lower B and E, the others were IN TUNE (!!!)
No flaws at all, everything worked (and works) perfectly

It's very massive. The machines hold the tuning as they should.

Actually, the gal is so big, I needed to buy a whole-new mammoth-size strap for it, cause I don't like it if the guitar is up in my mouth.

Thomann has a good customer support as far as I know, but this time I didn't need any.

The bass arrived after 7 days from Germany to Hungary counting from the bank transfer.

I've been playing guitar since I was 6, I own six more guitars, (Samick Sa-11, BC Rrich custom Beast-w/seymour duncans, Fender P-Bass Special V, Alvaro 30 spanish guitar, a noname 12-string dreadnought and a Fender Stratacoustic) a noname banjo, a Yamaha DGX-505 keyboard for learning, and a Harley Benton 12 piece harmonica set (also from Thomann)+a Sennheiser microphone.

Amp-wise I got a Fender Frontman for practising, and for giggin I got a 120w custom made tube combo. For bass I only lend stuff :-))))

I use a Digitech multieffect, and various Boss pedals for the mini-train, plus a Crybaby Jimi Hendrix WAH-WAH


I love everything bout this guitar, I'd be broken for the rest of my life if somthing would happen to it. I tried various acoustic basses before ordering, like a fretless Takamine or a fretted J&D, without knowing what the Harley Benton would sound and play like. After I got it, the only thing I can say that this one's superior to anything in my knowledge.

Oh, and for this price... it's a joke. Think it over... some people buy guitars OVER the price of like 3000 Euros!!! (maybe I can afford that one day too...)

Acoustic bass with built in electrics for amplication. Appears to be fully laminated in construction, it has a laminate spruce top, the back and sides appear to mahoganny, good solid neck, not thin like many acoustic basses. Also the bass is not clogged with a thick laquer finish but rather has a thin satin finish. Oh yeah one other thing the bass is absolutely huge!!! I've never seen anything this big before, it has a full scale length and is 50 inches in lenght, about 20 inches in width and the body is about 22inches, if your small forget about it.

All acoustic guitar basses suck when played against other acoustic instruments, they make great practice basses, you won't need a practice amp, ok it might just be heard against maybe one or two guitars but it does'nt move enough air to project to be loud, only double basses do that and thats because their big.

A few flaws present in mine, also some frets need dressing as they buzz, the action needs to be a lot higher.

Its laminate so i aint expecting to fall apart any time soon.

Played worse, played better set up basses such as the Tacoma thunderchief, also played on double basses. The bass has its applications and i'm sure once its had a professional set up i'll be happy with it.