Harmony HAR50 RD Les Paul Copy

No idea what year it was made... bought it as a floor model
from Rondo Music in New Jersey, home of the Agile and SX
lines of guitars. I was shopping for a house-warming gift for
a friend and thought it would be cool to give an electric
guitar instead of the standard fare gift. Its a Les Paul style
bolt-on student type guitar, much thinner and lighter than typical
Les Paul copies. Purple-burst with an archtop, two humbuckers,
two knobs, three-way switch, tune-o-matic style bridge. No idea what wood the body is made from, but the neck is maple with a satin finish with what appears to be a rosewood fretboard. If it is rosewood, its the lightest color rosewood I've ever seen. Good functioning sealed tuners. The purple-burst is what caught my eye...a very attractive guitar in its own right.

This guitar sounds like a Les Paul... and that surprised the hell out of me. I guess all guitars of a certain shape with a certain pick-up configuration tend to sound similar... but for 89 bucks
it sounds remarkable. Its been played through Boogies, Behringers and Vox Valvetronix amps and sounds good.

It plays well and in tune with good action. It had some belt rash
but I didn't care... the three-way switch broke so I put a Stew-Mac
switch in. Pots sound smooth, not scratchy.

Not alot to go wrong with it. Reasonable quality considering
its price point. A good guitar to take to gigs where you don't want to bring your good equipment but still care about tone and staying in tune.

It was sold as is... and as it is its fine.

For what it is, this guitar truly is a fantastic value. Good looking enough to hang on the wall, and good playing enough to keep
as a back-up. I've had guitars that cost five times as much that didn't play or sound as good as this Harmony. Sometimes you get lucky with a cheap guitar.

I have had two of these come through my shop. Not sure what year they were made but know they were both made in China, but both had 22 frets, more than likely a laminated top. Simple controls, being one volume, one tone control with two passive open coil humbucker pickups. Body is arched top, but probably plywood but actually a very nice finish, one being red and the other being purple/black. Maple neck, with a rosewood fretboard. Basic Les Paul style body, sort of reminded me of the Epiphone Les Paul Special but the 3 way selector switch is located above and in the middle of the volume tone knobs instead of centered like the Epiphone. Bridge is stop tailpiece, non locking tuners, but both stayed in tune just fine. Both had medium frets and both came to my shop in gigbags. Actually very nice guitars for the price attached to them (both under $100.00).

My music style is everything from rockabilly/classic rock/country to metal and southern rock. Both of these suited my music style just fine. I ran them both through a Marshall Valvestate 15 and an Ibanez TB15R and a Marshall G30RCD with a Rogue DS-5 Distortion Pedal and a Danelectro Corned Beef Hash Reverb. The humbuckers keep the noise at bay and both of them had nice sounds. Both were fairly bright on the bridge pickups and both very mellow on the neck pickups. The middle pickups gave a very good attempt at sounding classic Les Paul. I am not a Les Paul fan. I prefer Stratocasters and Telecasters. I just don't consider Les Pauls or their copies to be very versatile. What can you do with two humbucker pickups? Not a lot of variety. Both were good for what Les Pauls are intended for. Rock and Roll music with the emphasis on beefy metal.

Both were set up quite well from the factory. I had to lower the strings just a tad on one of them and file one of the frets down on the other because it kind of grabbed your fingers while playing. Pickups were set up just fine and everything else was good. I believe they could be quite dependable, especially for the cost. Again, less than $100.00.

I think it would withstand live playing. Hardware seems good, finish is fine and strap buttons appeared to be pretty good. I think it is dependable, but no one in his or her right mind would gig without a backup.

Never dealt with them.

I've been playing and working on guitars for over 35 years. I did not own these guitars, so I couldn't say I would go out and buy one. I have both a Fender Stratocaster and a JB Player Tele copy that is absolutely awesome as well as a Takamine Acoustic Electric. I'll give it an 8.

a harmony les paul copy,22 frets,H/H pickup configuration,maple neck with rosewood fretboard,one volume and one tone control,dark red finish, adjustable pole pieces on the pickups. just a simple but good copy of a les paul.

the pickups sound very nice for a budget guitar! i play through a peavy bandit 15 amp with a boss ds-1 distortion pedal.the sound is suprisingly full for suck a cheap guitar.i play a lot of punk rock and metal and it works very well for those styles of music. its hard to get a good cleen sound from it but if you roll back the tone a little and put it on the neck pickup alone it gets a lot cleaner.overall its very nice for the price though!

another big suprise for me was how low the action was on this budget guitar! everything is set up perfectly on it!

everything seems very sturdy and well made but only time will tell...

well,i bought it from a local dealer so i could always take it back to there if i have any problems with it.it has a 800 number that you can call for customer suport and an e-mail address. and it has a lifetime warranty.not to bad but a website would be nice.

i've been playing for 5 years.this is the 3rd electric guitar i've owned and so far it is the one of highest quality.if it were stolen or lost i would try to find another like it but i'm sure that would be hard to do since i've never seen thease anywhere else before.overall i plan to keep this guitar for a very long time.i may upgrade the pickups to either gibsons or duncans...not sure yet. it was well worth the small amount i paid for it.