Goldilocks33 Posted February 22 Share Posted February 22 My daughter is 13 years old and she is very much into music. Unfortunatelly I don't know any music at all. She is doing her Piano Grade 6 at the moment. One day she came back and was asking for electric guitar for her summer birthday present. We live in Colchester. So one day we visited a local music shop called Peach Guitars. Shop assistant recommended these which roughly around 550 pounds. Apprently I don't have much these much money. So my daughter has found out herself this. Harley Benton ST-20HSS Standard SBK Set – Thomann UK I need you prefessonal advices which one or what I could get for my daughter then decide how to stretch the money until her birthday? Many thanks Tina Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dad3353 Posted February 22 Share Posted February 22 Good evening, @Goldilocks33, and ... ... Plenty to read and amuse you here, and lots to learn and share. The one your daughter has researched and chosen is just fine, and will stand her in good stead for many years to come. Yes, there are better (read : 'different'...), more expensive instruments out there, but her choice is very good for starting out on a lifetime's journey. If your budget is up to it, give your lucky daughter an excellent birthday present, that she will cherish. It could have been worse; a double bass is quite a lot more expensive..! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Musical Mystery Tour Posted February 22 Share Posted February 22 Harley Bentons are made in Indonesia, as are Cort guitars, so there's very little difference in quality and components, thus as you can probably guess most of what you are paying for with many guitars is the logo and where you buy it from, i.e. you will typically pay more at a guitar shop than you will from an online store, since the overheads are cheaper with a online store and they tend to shift a lot more units; this keeps their prices down. It's a shame because it is making life hard for actual brick and mortar shops, but that's just the way it is with shops these days. With regard to the quality of Harley Bentons, they are usually very good guitars. You can't really go wrong with them. 550 quid for a Cort is on the other hand, ludicrously overpriced for what it is. So yeah, that HB is a better choice and of course it includes an amp, cable, tuner etc, so it's everything you need all in one go. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ezbass Posted February 23 Share Posted February 23 Fit and finish of the HB won’t be as good as the Cort, but any playability issues can be addressed by having it set up by a guitar tech. It’ll be money well spent. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Goldilocks33 Posted February 23 Author Share Posted February 23 Thank you gentlemen. it's very helpful. My daughter would be very pleased for her choice. She's so keen to get this guitar and lessons rather than school ski trip based on ourfinancial circumstances. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Pinky Posted February 23 Share Posted February 23 (edited) Can I add my experiences in the hope it may give some inspiration. I originally had an electric guitar some 40 odd years ago, it was best described as cheap and nasty - although I thought it was great. I picked up the guitar again about a year ago after some 30 odd years away and although I have nowhere near the experience and expertise of others on this forum you may find my observations of some use. I purchased my electric guitar via Marketplace on Facebook, it strikes me that there are a lot of second hand guitars and amps for sale (possibly because a lot of people give up very quickly?). My electric is an Epiphone Les Paul Studio for which I paid £100,I bought it mainly because it looks good, however the bonus is that it plays nice too. I got a local guitar tech to give it a once over and he said that I'd made a good a good purchase. What have I learnt from my own experiences? Give a local guitar tech a call, they maybe able to advise or possibly even be able to supply you with a suitable set up, secondly it may be worth finding any local groups of musicians who get together for jam sessions to speak to. I am very lucky in that I have both very local a group and guitar tech near to me, which is very useful as the nearest decent music shop is now more than an hour away from me. Another thing I have been looking at recently is a series of videos released by Andertons music in Guildford (I have no link with them and in fact still want/need to pay a visit), these videos include reviews of starter set ups etc. Hope this helps but be warned guitars can seriously damage your wealth, in the past 12 months I have gone from zero guitars to two acoustics and an electric and am now considering purchasing a fourth guitar and my first pedal, although my wife doesn't know yet. P.S. I was very lucky as the amp was a freebie in exchange for a cable! Good luck Edited February 23 by The Pinky 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crusoe Posted February 23 Share Posted February 23 I have a couple of Harley Bentons and the quality on both is decent. In fact, one of them cost me £138 but the quality is on a par with instruments I've seen at two or three times the price. The one she has chosen will be great for her to start out on. You might need to take it to a guitar technician to get the setup just right on it, but you can wait until it comes to find that out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Musical Mystery Tour Posted February 23 Share Posted February 23 To be fair, the set up on the Harley Benton TE52 Telecaster which I have, was not bad as it came. I did tweak it a bit, and ended up swapping the neck pick up for a PAF, but it was genuinely playable right out of the box and would have been okay even if I left it completely stock. It's on par with my Fender Telecaster which was obviously a lot more expensive, but frankly, that's just a case of having paid for the name. Even if a guitar does require a bit of setting up, it's usually only about 40 quid for a guitar tech to do it, although if you have some fairly basic tools, you can do it yourself and there are a ton of videos on youtube which will show you how to do this. It's not rocket science; if you are the kind of person who can wire a plug, you can do a guitar set up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crusoe Posted February 23 Share Posted February 23 17 minutes ago, Musical Mystery Tour said: To be fair, the set up on the Harley Benton TE52 Telecaster which I have, was not bad as it came. I did tweak it a bit, and ended up swapping the neck pick up for a PAF, but it was genuinely playable right out of the box and would have been okay even if I left it completely stock. It's on par with my Fender Telecaster which was obviously a lot more expensive, but frankly, that's just a case of having paid for the name. Even if a guitar does require a bit of setting up, it's usually only about 40 quid for a guitar tech to do it, although if you have some fairly basic tools, you can do it yourself and there are a ton of videos on youtube which will show you how to do this. It's not rocket science; if you are the kind of person who can wire a plug, you can do a guitar set up. I have the TE-62 and it was the same. The actin could maybe be a little lower, but it's perfectly playable as is. Some of the fret ends are a tiny bit sharp, but they don't affect the playability and I've felt worse. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ezbass Posted February 23 Share Posted February 23 8 hours ago, Goldilocks33 said: She's so keen to get this guitar and lessons rather than school ski trip based on ourfinancial circumstances. Given the lack of snow in some parts, this is no bad thing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
