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Harley Benton Enhanced P/MM bass

A

-Asdfgh-

Apr 13, 2010
15,381
27,599
UK
#1
See link:

www.thomann.co.uk

Harley Benton Enhanced MP-4MN Natural

Electric Bass Style: PB, Ergonomically shaped body made of swamp ash, 6-Bolt Canadian Hard Rock Maple neck, Fingerboard: Maple, Fingerboard inlays: Black blocks, Neck Profile: Modern "C", 22 Medium Jumbo Blacksmith stainless steel frets, Black TUSQ...
www.thomann.co.uk www.thomann.co.uk

It's a cheapy for jams/the practice room. In terms of neck, frets, finish it's fine. In terms of sound, it's muffled, a common complaint.

Active and flat it's marginally usable without lots of EQ. Treble full on it's slightly better, but starts getting a bit brittle.

Passive, it's marginally usable (for me) with treble full up but backing the treble makes it muddy rather than the usual treble roll off.

The blend pot seems to be backwards.

I'd like to see if I can make it work better for me for the practice space without spending a lot of money.

Options:

1. The preamp seems to have headers for a mid control, so I could find a screw adjustable b100k pot and see if tweaking the mids works. Then I can seal the pot inside the body - no knob changes.

2. ditto, but there's apparently a mid frequency shift header.

3. Put in a new but cheap preamp.

4. Sell - I can put my parts jazz in the space.
 
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#3
Since it sounds dark in passive AND active mode, it's probably pickups. You could wiring one of them directly to the output jack, to be certain. And if that's the case, buy used better pickups, brighter sounding.
It is possible that will fix the sound, and you might not need to change preamp.
 
#4
RattleSnack said:
Since it sounds dark in passive AND active mode, it's probably pickups. You could wiring one of them directly to the output jack, to be certain. And if that's the case, buy used better pickups, brighter sounding.
It is possible that will fix the sound, and you might not need to change preamp.
Click to expand...
From reports from others, reading more widely but inconclusively, it doesn't seem to be the pickups but possibly potentiometer values, as when passive it may only be seeing 25k potentiometers, or possible 25k blend and 100k treble. If someone can shed light on whether that would explain the difference.

It will be difficult to easily wire direct to the output as it uses Molex connectors. If there are any hints on bridging Molex to Molex, that would be very useful.
 
#5
i got a HB J5 passive for xmas...it sounds a little thin and bright but is a well made instrument....I haven't modded mine yet, but i'd start with new potentiometers which would be the cheapest upgrade imo
 
#7
Even though it is cheap, it is a bit expensive to be a disappointment. Don’t know what an Affinity or other affordable bass would run where you live. But considering price + shipping to USA, I would buy a Squier or Sterling and retain more resale potential. Has a HB short scale. Looked nice, was heavy, didn’t keep. Sold for half of what I paid. Learned my lesson.
 
#8
Neck Diver said:
Even though it is cheap, it is a bit expensive to be a disappointment. Don’t know what an Affinity or other affordable bass would run where you live. But considering price + shipping to USA, I would buy a Squier or Sterling and retain more resale potential. Has a HB short scale. Looked nice, was heavy, didn’t keep. Sold for half of what I paid. Learned my lesson.
Click to expand...
The thread is about trying to see if there's a low cost fix for this instrument. If not, I'll pass it on to someone for whom the time works and use another instrument I already have in the practice space
 
#11
This is apparently the schematic (pickup types not accurate)
 

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#16
The preamp doesn't obviously have the headers indicated above, and not on Molex connections either, but directly soldered. That will make testing the pickups directly trickier as it will involve some desoldering at the very least. A project for next week, perhaps.

One pot is mounted to the small PCB, presumably to anchor it.

There are some solder pads unused, but the function isn't obvious.

Passive, it goes through blend, volume and tone on. I can't see the values on the first two, but the tone is dual gang, 50k and 500k ohms, with the path determined via a switch.
 
#17
One the P pickup alone (I don't have anything else with a MM pickup in the J position) then bass 25%, treble 25%, active, more-or-less matches the sound I get from a Precision Lyte or passive Precision, if still a little woolly. I will have a poke around and see about replacing the pot. As it's a push-pull that's more soldering than I'd ideally like to do, so I'll see.

It's not the usual preamp in there you see in some photos, so maybe it got replaced, but the soldering looks good so either it is the original and just a different version of the preamp or the soldering is just a lot better than my standard and I just can't tell if it's been modified.

However, I also have a preamp in a Jazz bass and whilst I can't drop that into the Harley Benton as all the pots are mounted to a PCB thus the spacing is fixed, I can jury-rig using a different preamp before swapping the pot quite easily as it's solderless so easy to borrow from the Jazz. I know it sounds perfectly decent in the Jazz.
 
#19
My other option is (at the added effort of finding the instructions, checking it will fit, planning the pots and a lot of soldering) is that I have a Passinwind filter preamp in components (actually two). I had intended to put this into a pedal format so I would need to potentially buy some extra push-pull and stacked pots.
 

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