Harley Benton MS-60 VW Vintage Series

It showed up in 9 days. A new record, I hadn't even bothered to track it yet.

Arrived unscathed. The only other HB guitar I was really jones-ing for the HB35 was still out of stock and I had 30 Euro credit that was set to expire. I had emailed Thomann about the possibility of an offset style guitar in left handed showing up soon and they said no. (of course, the day after I placed my order the hard tail Jazzmaster showed up on the site...I think they get customer service tips from Mr. Z)

Right off the bat, I pulled off the strings to make it a lefty. Lucky for me, the nut was not glued in place, so all I had to do was put a drop of Elmers on it and reseat it.

The bridge I tried to flip the saddles, but no dice they wouldn't come out so I just set it as close to intonated as possible. The only string I am having trouble with is the E, so I might Mick Jagger this and rip off the E.

It is a chunky little guy, does not feel like a toy at all despite the short scale and small body. It definitely doesn't neck dive...

Tuners are nice and smooth, no play or slop and they hold tune as long as you don't use the whammy.

The bridge is the downfall on this guy, it rocks enough to keep it in tune if you are really gentle with the whammy, but it will not return to pitch it you push it too hard. I am going to get a Wilkinson roller and while I am at it I will fill the current bridge holes and convert it to a lefty for real and angle the bridge correctly.

Pickups sound nice, not really like a Mustang, but they are very good. I especially like the neck pup. It is pretty muscular sounding. The bridge pup is pretty weak sounding, but in a good way. They really complement one another well with both engaged.

Neck is the highlight on this thing. It is a very nice quasi-vintage tint with a satin feel. Frets are vintage sized (pre-06 Fender size). They really fit the vibe of the guitar.

Headstock is rather small, but very tasteful, I especially like the "Fine Quality Sound" in fine print at the end of the headstock.

Finish is almost mint green as opposed to vintage white, but I like it. I think it would look sweet with a red tort pick guard and a chrome Mustang control plate.

How does it play? excellent, no issues playing up to the 17th fret (really good for a righty flipped to lefty) and the controls are out of the way, a right angle cord is all that is really needed. IT is even comfortable to use the trem. I am going to move the strap button to a neck screw and it should be good to go.

The bad? The pickguard is pretty dorky looking. I wish they spent a few more dollars and put a proper control plate on it. The bridge should have been a roller or at least barrel saddles. The Pickups aren't installed the same way (the staggered "B" string pole is on the A string on the neck pickup)

This was my first Harley Benton and i was very dissapointed with the setup, there was major fret buzz nearly everywhere on the frets. It took me about 3 hours to set it up correctly so their QC really needs to be checked. Tuners are decent but they do need replacing as they kept slipping even after 4 days of use.

Anyway enough of the bad here is the good sort of.

Once it was setup it is a great guitar for the money. It really looks vintage too with the ivory colour. The sound has a 70's vibe to it which i love. It feels very easy to play not the best but good.

Overall a great value guitar. All though you need to spend a bit more getting a decent setup and better tuners. but for the price it can't be beat. I will be buying another HB for sure.

Cons:
-Low E string binded to the neck above the nut. This got sorted whit a little filing on the neck
-Jag style tremolo unit is hard to set up because there is no trem lock button. I Blocked the tremolo system anyway.
-Could not set the action low enough. High e was at 2.2mm. Had to shim the neck.
-Input jack had a grounding problem. Sorted out with a little soldering.

Pros:
-Wilkinson pickups sound great
-Neck feels really smooth whit no frets stiking out
-Frets were leveled nice, no buzzing.
-Tuners seem solid.
-After fixing all the cons it plays great.
-Mustang shape is nice :D

Overall i would not recommend this guitar to any one who doesn't want to get their hands dirty fixing all the problems in it. But after fixing all the cons its a great nice guitar to mod or just to play.

For the price, this is a good guitar in terms of playability. The neck is fairly nice, the frets could do with a little bit of work but they're not too bad, the nut is good (even if a little rough), the tuners stay in tune fairly well, the bridge is passable, and the pickups & electronics don't have any problems.

That's where the positives end, unfortunately. This guitar is ridiculously heavy. I know Harley Bentons in general have a bit of a reputation of not exactly being the lightest guitars, but I did not expect this shortscale Mustang-esque guitar to be as heavy as it is. And it's not even a case of Thomann paying less attention to the weight of the wood they use in order to keep down the price, no, the body itself is thick. It's as thick as the body on my Fender Telecaster Standard AND it's heavier than that. I don't understand why the body has to be as thick as it is, considering how much unnecessary weight it's adding.

There's also just a general lack of care, especially when it was delivered. It was as if it was hastily packaged & chucked about in the factory. When I got it, one of the strings was snapped (not a big deal at the time, as I had another set I wanted to put on it anyway) & it came with a left handed trem arm, for whatever reason. I don't even think this guitar has a left handed version. And something in the trem system must have not been screwed in properly, as the bit where you put the trem arm in has collapsed into the bridge.

Don't buy this, even if the price is tempting. Look at the Squier Mustang Super Sonic instead.

Hi guys! I've finally got this beautiful instrument and really want to share my happiness with you =)

Pros:
- A very nice freatboard, no frets stiking out
- Solid tuners, I'm impressed
- Neck pickup sounds warm and the bridge one is like a glass

Cons:
- pickups sound is rather quiet, will fix it with amp volume =)
- the bridge is really hard, not going to use it anyway
- pickups are a little bit noisy but they are singles so it's fine

Overall MS-60 is a great guitar. It can be used right from the box. No addtitonal fixes needed. I'd like to replace bridge pickup with another one in future but no rush for it.
The color of the guitar is not white as on a picture. It's lemon but I think it's even better - a true vintage look.

I'm going to use this guitar playing with my rock'n'roll band. Hope I could play it even during conserts.

Though I live in the States and knew I’d incur a hefty shipping fee, I purchased the MS-60 about nine months ago. It arrived well-packaged but otherwise in utterly unplayable condition.

I endeavored to perform a set-up but the nut, which Thomann says is graphite, is made of some sort of crumbly material that cannot be cleanly filed to remove burrs that impinge the strings. Worse, the Tune-o-Matic saddles could not be adjusted enough to set the intonation. The set screws on the front of the bridge could not be secured tightly enough to stop them from rattling with every strum.

A lengthy email correspondence with Thomann ensued. Clearly, they did not want to authorize a return of the product. The company finally agreed to allow me to ask a local tech for assistance. The tech had to refill and recut the nut and replace screws on the bridge so that the guitar could be intonated. But the vibration of screws on the front of the bridge — the sound of which came through the pickups — could not be eliminated.

Thomann’s guitar department advised me to secure the screws with orthodontic rubber bands. Rubber bands! I attempted to do so, but the bands kept breaking.

They finally agreed to send me a replacement bridge, which I installed. After installing the new bridge, I noticed a significant rattle coming from beneath the tremolo. I removed the system and found that the entire thing simply does not fit properly in the guitar — hence, the rattle.

After doing all this work on the guitar, it remains essentially unusable.

As for positives, I can say that the guitar looks cool, fits nicely on the lap and has no neck dive with a strap, and its neck and fretboard feel nice now that I have filed and polished the frets and moisturized the board. The Roswell neck pickup sounds all right, but the bridge pickup is weak and shrill.

Bottom line: the QC on this guitar was abysmal. The bridge and tremolo both appear to have design defects, though maybe other iterations of these parts are up to snuff. I expected to have to do set-up work on this budget guitar, but I did not expect that a proper set-up would be impossible with the parts as delivered.

Bought this as I've bought several Harley Benton guitars from Thomann in the last couple of months, and have yet to be disappointed! Great buying experience from Thomann as per usual. fancied something different from the Usual Strat and Tele type guitars that I have in my collection, I also bought the Harley Benton S600 VI at the same time. Both guitars arrived well packed and protected, within 5 days, and the purchase. I unboxed this model first and when I bought it, the one thing that put me off, was the pickguard, as I've never been keen on Pearloid scratchplates. On inspection, I can only say that the pictures on the website haven't done it justice, It's not being replaced, it's staying for good! It's pretty obvious which guitar this is based on, and I can say what an absolute joy it is to play! The shorter than normal 24" scale gives the guitar a unique voice, and playability is really good too! The only "problem" I had when I bought it was, that on the first use of the tremolo the arm was "stuck" in a higher position than it should have been, resulting in the first use of it sending the guitar a couple of semitones lower than it had originally been set up. No Problem! A quick re-tune and it was absolutely fine! I wasn't expecting to use the trem that much, as I've heard that they can be problematic on this type of guitar. I can report that I really like this trem! There's only about one semitones worth of down travel on it, but it it very controlled travel (makes me think of great film soundtracks!), I'm pleasantly surprised that the tuning stability is pretty good, I've played it for over an hour with a reasonable amount of use, and it has barely shifted in pitch! The range of tones is really good too! I'd actually say, that to my ears, it sounds like a "dark" Telecaster. Fretwork is really good, and setup is pretty good too, out of the box (unlike some guitars I've bought in the past!). I'm considering getting another one of these to do a Kurt Cobain type setup, with a Humbucker in the bridge position! Yet again, Harley Benton has rewritten the book in what to expect from an inexpensive guitar! I'd definitely recommend this guitar to anybody!!!!!! Great work guys!!!!!!

I am learning to play guitar. I started out with a guitar borrowed from my brother, who is left handed. The guitar is a nice old BC Rich, but ergonomics matter (lesson one).
I went online and started learning about guitars. I found Harley Benson and findmyguitar.com. They led me to the MS-60 - looked like a nice guitar and a great beginner's guitar.
Buying from Thomann was a good experience. When it came, it all just worked - nicely.
Now I'm actually learning to play. It's an adventure. It will take awhile, but I really like the guitar. Meanwhile I'm planning out how to build and finish my dream guitar starting with a Harley Benson kit. The adventure continues.

I have read many reviews. Of course there are many pluses, I will focus on the minuses.
1. Why doesn't anyone talk about the horribly painted fingerboard? And why paint the fingerboard at all?I thought the level of HB was higher than that... Because of this, all the strings and fingers get dirty in black. It took a very long time to process the neck with alcohol and then lemon oil to get rid of this supposedly "luxury" dark neck.
2. There was a Whammy lever in the kit, which does not fit in diameter. The Thomann are already solving this problem, I hope they will solve it.
3. Something is rattling terribly inside the deck. I can't ignore it. It will be necessary to disassemble and find what.