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“Blends performance and aesthetics into a single, uncompromising musical tool”: Harley Benton’s well-specced $285 eight-string finally gets a left-handed version
Harley Benton has come to the aid of southpaw players with the R-458MN LH WH multi-scale – an eight-string guitar that packs serious specs for a $285 price tag.
Standout shredders like Tosin Abasi, Misha Mansoor, and Fredrik Thorendal have helped bring eight-string guitars to prominence, and in recent years, more and more sub–$500 models have come to market to meet demand. But, by and large, left-handed players have been left out, despite the extended-range guitar’s rise in popularity.
Cue Thomann-owned Harley Benton, like Superman cutting through the Metropolis skyline, to arrive on the scene. Spec-wise, it’s pretty much a like-for-like variant of its right-handed eight-string counterparts – one of which I found stood up way more than expected alongside a Strandberg, despite costing around 10% of the Swedish guitar’s outlay.
As such, the LH model pairs a poplar body with a bolt-on Speed D maple neck and maple fretboard with a 25.5”-27” scale length, 24 medium jumbo frets, a nubone nut, and offset dot inlays.
This beast’s all-black hardware includes a hardtail bridge and die-cast tuners, whilst two high-gain humbuckers are bolstered by Volume and Tone controls, and a three-way toggle switch. From personal experience, the pickups sound pretty good, they're finely balanced, but do need a little more spice for full-throttle metal – active EMGs, they are certainly not.
The guitar only being available in a white finish might disappoint some, but beggars can’t be choosers at such a low price. For a darker aesthetic, see the R-458FFB LH Roasted MultiScale.
“With its black hardware against the white finish that’s sure to turn heads when on stage,” says Harley Benton, “the R-458MN LH WH MultiScale blends performance and aesthetics into a single, uncompromising musical tool.”
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It arrives strung with .009-.065 gauge strings, tuned to standard (F#-B-E-A-D-G-B-E).
A freelance writer with a penchant for music that gets weird, Phil is a regular contributor to Prog, Guitar World, and Total Guitar magazines and is especially keen on shining a light on unknown artists. Outside of the journalism realm, you can find him writing angular riffs in progressive metal band, Prognosis, in which he slings an 8-string Strandberg Boden Original, churning that low string through a variety of tunings. He's also a published author and is currently penning his debut novel which chucks fantasy, mythology and humanity into a great big melting pot.
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