Yeah those pickups were some how thin, weak and super noisy. Tells me something went wrong making them.

tbf it's usually what separates these guitars from higher priced models. It's usually the electronics and the QC or setups. Imo it's a good project guitar, to change pickups, knobs, tuners, nut etc and then you get a beast. I did something similar to a Jackson PS-1 I own. It was horrible sound wise, so I just changed almost everything, just didn't change the frets or the bridge and the guitar is amazing

I think that's harsh. I barely heard a difference, and even if there was one, the price difference is so large that it doesn't make any sense to upgrade.

@@MegaDeox typically I agree, stock pickups tend to be fine. And granted, I am listening on studio monitors. My personal experience with HB pickups has been bad. I think the Roswell and Tesla brands they use are good. HBZ and HB passive have all been trash. HBZ I have used have had bad preamps. In the isolated clips here, the pick attack and gain roll off on the HBs are noticeably bad to me. They sound spongy. In a mix you won’t really tell, only the player will know based on the response and that could affect the performance overall. The noise issue is another thing and I have found that a high noise floor in the signal can kill sustain and definition. I will typically try and demonstrate clean tones to illustrate issues with output and definition since gain can mask some of those problems.

It's got good bones and I think you'll be happy with it once you polish it up a bit. Hopefully the 7 string pickups are better than the 8's or I got some duds or something.

I have a demo of the pickups coming up soon. Really interesting and unique with the bridge having both ceramic and alnico magnets.

Sounds like you upgraded your pretty awesome. I may do the bridge too, but honestly the bridge it comes with just fine. My goal was to take a guitar under $200, spend a few hundred and get it sounding and playing like a higher end guitar, and I think I've done that.

How do you like the 8 string black winters?

@@MetalZoned They're fantastic. Same with the 7 string version.

@@jeffhirshberg5171 if you were to do it over would you get the Harley Benton or the Jackson

@@MetalZoned The 7 string is a Jackson (JS22-7 DKA HD) and yes, it does sound a bit better. But I did the same mod work to it as the HB (Hipshot bridge/tuners and Graphtec Tusq nut). So, yes, I might go with the Jackson if I had to do it again. Though I'm very satisfied with the HB.

Back? Where'd I go?

That's awesome, glad to help inspire some ideas!

@@MetalHeadProductions Waiting on strings and locking tuners. Dealing with the stock pickups for now. A Timmy to boost it and a BE OD pedal into Cab M+ Metal Zone preset very much helps the goofy pickups on it.

the bones are good, but there are some issue they need to sort out. I hear this pickup thing is a problem in other guitars right now with them.

Idk, could be the saddle or even the nut possibly. Pickup swap did the trick for me, thankfully.

No worries, I would ask if you can hear the differences what you're listening through? Hope they enjoy the guitar!

@@MetalHeadProductions In all honesty, I am completely deaf in my left ear, but I am listening through a Bluetooth earpiece. It generally gives good service. Thanks for asking 🙂.

@@leodanryan966 I have to agree. Nobody can tell the difference in an actual song. Even listening to it out of the mix was hard to tell. I am pretty sure I could tell the difference if I was actually playing it though.

@@PegeCovers Well welll, look who else is looking at 8 strings guitars! :D

@@DrMobiusOfficial Oh noes 😳😏Yea at some point I want an 8 string. I collect different guitar types to cover a lot of ground 😩

I love the Warpigs, those are in my top for pickups for sure. Idk what is wrong with the pickups that come stock in this but it seems like something is wrong with how it's wired because it's listed as high output, but they're actually super weak and on top of that, crazy noisy like they weren't ground properly or something.

@@MetalHeadProductions Well, looking at the price of wood, and the price of the guitars, they had to cheap out SOMEWHERE, so I think that the pickups are some $10 AliExpress pickups.. The one I got was also SUPER noisy, extremely low output, and felt like there was a lowpass filter on it even if I had the tone all the way up.. sounded muddy and muffled.. Warpigs cleared it all up! It's a great guitar to use as an upgrade platform!

@@Screwhead funny mine were all thin and top end, haha

how do the pickups fit in the guitar, and how many strings are the pickups for? im tryna find pickups that would fit in the 7 string fanfret but from what ive seen they are the size of 8 string soapbars

@@sirbonple these fit perfectly. Guitarmory will work with you and the size of the pickups in the guitar already to make sure they fit correctly.

Yeah it's got good bones. Tickets strings, a good setup and some better pickups will go a long way with this.

Standard 808 soapbar size.

@@MetalHeadProductionsI’m getting this guitar tomorrow and need to know if i could take EMG 808’s out of a Non Multiscale guitar and put them into the Harley B. Would that work or do I have to get pickups that are specifically designed for a multiscale guitar?

@@bultronlagore4932 I believe the pickup routes are a standard soapbar size so yes you can.

Haha, yeah, the main thing was new pickups and cleaning up those frets. Still, though, this and some decent pickups are around $300-400, not bad for what you get, but wow Harley Benton need to do something about these pickups.

@@MetalHeadProductions Oh the fretwork you did also definitely contributes a lot to the sound and feel. And yeah, around 400 bucks upgrade is not that big, i mean, the pickups you put in cost about the same as i paid for Fishman Abasi set so, not that super expensive. And there's also more affordable options like Warman pickups and Iron gear. It's just funny to me how an entire guitar can cost less than just a set of pickups. :D Funny times we live in, but i like it. Buying an instrument - a good one - has never been easier. I remember my starting guitar, a squier that i had to tune mid playing (yes, that bad), frets all over the place and held together with magic, idk how that guitar didn't fall apart. And it cost more than this Harley Benton. Thank god for Thomann right? :D You mentioned their 2x12 cabs with Celestions. I have it. It's insane value! And they sound great, especially for the price! My cats scratched the hell out of the case though. :P

Lol, cool, man

Eh, the parts aren't all that bad, especially if you find some used pickups, it's more that it takes some work to get it playing nice, like touching up the frets.