Artist Guitars V's Harley Benton.

bluecat · September 2023

I am thinking of a new Tele type guitar ( not quite ready yet, but in the near future. )
1. Artist Guitars, TC 59 T style. Bullbucker pickups, coil splitting, locking tuners, 4_4,5 kilo( seems heavy) £169.00
2. Harley Benton TE 52 T style single coils.£138.00
Both guitars have American ash bodies and Canadian maple necks.
BillDL bought an Artist B stock for not a lot of money and was pleasantly pleased with it. I already have a Harley Benton Cabronita style Tele with filtertrons which I am very happy with, can't fault it in any way, everything is spot on.
I have never paid more than £500.00 for a guitar. My MIM powerhouse strat was £500.00 plus hard case extra was £500.00 , two years old and I have had it 22 years, certainly a keeper. My TW 45 DLX was the same price, I bought a hard case shortly after. That is also a keeper. These two guitars say good for all genres , so if you guys and gals want to talk to me, what do you reckon? All I have these days is my state pension so I can't spend too much on nice things. Just got to be careful.

GoFish · September 2023

Go Harley B then. But go for the 60s versions which seem to be much lighter. They have a comprehensive returns policy if you don't like it, or you can just stick it on the bay and recoup most of your outlay. Gouge out chunks from the nut and fiddle with the action and intonation and you may even be able to sell it for a modest profit as "upgraded (pro setup)"

*

*Please don't do that

swiller · September 2023

Alternatives for similar money..
If you are just playing at home, look out for late 80s squier telecasters made in korea. The same Strats are sublime but heavy and having played a tele recently i can confirm they are as good as the strats. Sub £200 SH (paid £130 for my strat) and if you can cope with the weight, playing at home on the lap etc, they come highly recommended.
If something more modern, eart teles are absolute bangers for the money and fretwork is stellar. Dont see a lot up second hand, but if you can find one, worth the money and should be 200 arena.
E2A..
https://reverb.com/uk/item/72576517-eart-nk-c1-single-cut-electric-guitar-blue-flamed-body

darthed1981 · September 2023

I've got an HB tele.

I reckon if I swapped the pickups it would be as good as a custom shop...

Seriously though - it's two bits of wood bolted together with some wires on - with even a reasonable ability to program a CNC machine, it's probably going to be hard to make a bad guitar these days.

Mine is absolutely fine, and the neck is lovely.

Tall_martin · September 2023

I bought a Harley Benton telecaster alike.

I was going to change the pickups, but I like them just as they are.

https://www.thomann.de/gb/harley_benton_te_62db_car.htm

Plays fine, sounds fine, I still love the colour a year on.

All for £138+ what ever postage was

bluecat · September 2023

I know Harley Benton can produce a good guitar. But what about Artist?

LionAquaLooper · September 2023

I have a Harley Tele. TE70 RW model. The pickguard is not the same size as Fenders, which is what everyone else uses as a standard. Might be the same situation with the TE52. HB do sell Tele pickguards but are Fender sized which is hilariously ironic. Just something to be aware of.

DrCornelius · September 2023

If you are quick then Thomann are blowing out the Squier 40th anniversary Tele for £259. I reckon that’s worth a look

Btrcu · September 2023

Have you considered a Jet JT-300 or even a JT-350? They seem to get very good reviews everywhere and the JT-300 is £159 at most places (JT-350 is more towards the £250 mark).

BillDL · September 2023

The Artist TC59 natural finish ash body with maple neck and twin coil-split humbuckers is a VERY heavy guitar for a Tele style. It's in 70s Strat or LP territory for weight, and all of the B-Stock customer returns of this guitar I have seen except one have been described as "Customer returned. Too heavy". So much so that I took two differently sized large holesaws, bored most of the way into the body from the back, and used a plunge router to create two sizeable weight relief cavities that I just covered with large diameter circles of scratchplate material. It is still heavy despite the chunks of wood I routed out, but is now manageable and hasn't changed the tone. I clearly wasn't intent on doing this as neatly as I could have because nobody sees the back and I don't care if anybody does. The neck is a pretty chunky one and the fretwork was of a fairly good standard where the ends were perfectly playable out the box but I rounded and smoothed them off because I'm pernickety. I'm sure that Artist "Bullbucker" pickups are made by the same OEM that makes Wilkinson's pickups. They are pretty good pickups and I believe they are possibly a bit better than the Harley Benton Roswell ones, but that's just subjective as I've never swapped pickups between an Artist and a Harley Benton. They could easily be made in the same factory.

There are other Artist Guitars Tele shapes in natural finish with black pickguards that have Strat type body contours to bring down the weight a bit, which this presumably does, but they won't suit everybody and in any case they are almost always out of stock.

AT92 - Essentially just a TC59 with contoured body.

AT91 - Same contoured body guitar with standard "Twangler" single coils.

AT93 - Same again but with single coil in bridge and humbucker in neck.

I think if I was buying one of these natural finish Teles now I would probably go for the AT92 for the weight reduction but still with humbuckers, but that's purely because I already have other "Teles" with single coils.

The Harley Benton TE52 is a very similarly made guitar but the one I had was noticeably lighter than the Artist TC59 and the neck profile was slightly less of a handful. It is possible that if you were to add the additional weight of the chunky bridge with integrated humbucker mounting ring and the additional weight of humbucking pickups and locking tuners to a Harley Benton TE52, they may actually end up being similar weights.

There really isn't a lot separating the Artist TC59 and Harley Benton TE52 in terms of build quality and fretwork standard, but obviously the pickups are humbuckers vs single coils. They are both 21-fret guitars with maple fretboards. The Artist TC59 actually sounds like a Telecaster even on full humbucking mode, albeit with a bit more grunt, and the push-pull switching to coil split gives a reasonable semblance of a single coil sound but doesn't quite recreate the sound of a normal Tele with single coils.

My Harley Benton TE62-CC in Lake Placid Blue is a really nice guitar and is considerably lighter than the plain ash bodied TE52. I think the body is a few mm thinner and it definitely has a slimmer neck profile. The Roswell Alnico V pickups were fine but perhaps just a a little "thin" for what I was seeking at the time, but I had a set of Irongear Steel Foundry overwound pickups (RRP £60) that gave it a lot more spank while still sounding like a Tele. I very much prefer the feel of the TE62 to my Harley Benton TE-70 (Black Paisley) that I've had for a lot longer, and it is of better quality.

grungebob · September 2023

Have you considered the Jet JT300? Really nice guitars for about £160. The necks and fretwork are fantastic.

MartinBush · September 2023

I have the Jet Strat and it's great.

But at that price you are in Squier Sonic territory which might be another option as the range seems to have been upgraded over the Bullet that it replaces. My Mustang is excellent.

I know it's not all about resale, certainly not at this level, but I expect you'd find more enthusiasm for a Squier than an Artist if it came to selling.

BillDL · September 2023

I have an Artist ST62 vintage white SSS Strat (£159) and I would say that in terms of build quality, hardware quality, playability and sound, it falls somewhere between the Squier Affinity (£220) and Squier Classic Vibe (£380), but I think the 2-point trem bridge is better quality than on the Affinity. The "Wrangler" pickups on the Artist ST62 suit the Strat better than those on the Squier Affinity Strat. The Artist guitars in this kind of price range and some of the more expensive ones have a composite material fretboard, whereas the Squier guitars tend to have Indian Laurel. It's hit and miss whether you get a nice piece of laurel and whether it has been sanded nice and smooth, whereas the composite material on the Artist guitars is always nice and smooth and looks like a nice piece of ebony. I'm not sure whether the Squier Sonic range have directly replaced the Bullet range (discontinued) or if they now lie somewhere between Bullet and Affinity and the Affinity is going to be discontinued.

Voxman · September 2023

Tall_martin said:

I bought a Harley Benton telecaster alike.

I was going to change the pickups, but I like them just as they are.

https://www.thomann.de/gb/harley_benton_te_62db_car.htm

Plays fine, sounds fine, I still love the colour a year on.

All for £138+ what ever postage was

The Roswell p/ups in my TE52NA are excellent. Action and neck are great, and although a bit on the heavy side for a Tele its really comfy to play. I changed the tuners for Wilkinson Vintage Deluxe (same look, better tuning), and replaced the chrome saddles (which were actually good) for a Wilkinson brass compensated set. Best £135 on gear I've ever spent.

Image: https://i.postimg.cc/LsZxdHvM/20201106-135751.jpg

bluecat · September 2023

Well that one looks really classic Tele.
At the end of the day, I think that is what I really want.
I have never ever heard anyone running Harley Benton s into the ground, not on here. Maybe it is a pride thing with players who can still afford more expensive guitars ( how can a cheapo guitar sound anything like a properly priced guitar? ) I know they can.
A few months ago now I was looking at a HB 62 double bound, the guitar looked Ace but the reviews said the pickups were not up to scratch. I am not into swapping out pickups, just want to play them as stock. They were probably ok, I can usually get a good tone between the guitar and the amp.

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Artist Guitars V's Harley Benton.

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