Harley Benton Aeolus | Outstanding versatility and unmatched specs for €399? | Review & Demo

This is the Harley Benton Aeolus! This rather beautiful semi-hollow guitar seems to sit somewhere between a Gibson Les Paul (with f holes!) and a 335 or 339 in looks, but it’s built to play like a much more modern instrument, and is also intended to be as versatile as possible. And as is usual with Harley Benton, the specs – on paper at least – look almost too good to be true for the price.

Get the Harley Benton Aeolus here: https://bit.ly/HBAeolusRWM

The Aeolus features a mahogany body with a flame maple veneer top (mine is in the Bengal Flame finish), a roasted maple neck and fingerboard with stainless steel frets, Grover locking tuners, a Graph Tech TUSQ nut, and Tesla VR-2 humbuckers which you can split down to single coils. Oh, and the fret markers on the side of the neck glow in the dark! All of which seems like utter madness for €399, really.

*Note – I make a mistake at 7:00! I say the neck is a one-piece, when it’s clearly not. You can even see a join just below the headstock. My mistake, sorry! (Thanks to João Rodrigues for pointing that out!)

So, in this video I put the Aeolus through a series of stringent tonal tests to see just how many genres and sounds it can handle! In theory, a Les Paul crossed with a 339 and coil splits should cover pretty much every sound on earth, so here I cover all my personal favorite styles: indie, country, classic rock, alternative rock, and a bit of heavier stuff too.

Here are some links to the various playing samples and info bits:

00:00 Hello!

00:49 Introduction to the Harley Benton Aeolus
01:41 My first impressions of the Aeolus and other guitars it reminds me of
03:39 Aeolus specs and info
09:34 Today’s rig
10:31 Note that the selector switch is the wrong way round!

Clean Sounds
11:09 Clean tone reference chords with all pickup options
11:52 Ringing open pop chords
12:22 Poppy barre chords
12:56 Indie pop picked chord arpeggios
13:35 Soul pop chords
13:59 Poppy melody and strummed chords with Aeolus tone pot sweep test
15:13 Country lead riff
15:31 Country ballad arpeggios
16:00 Bluesey southern rock riff
16:26 Atmospheric lead melody
16:44 Indie droning chord progression

Crunch Sounds
17:24 Crunch tone reference chords with all pickup options
18:41 AC/DC inspired classic rock riff
19:14 Hendrix inspired classic rock riff
19:31 Airbourne inspired classic rock riff
19:59 Classic rock rhythm riff
20:15 Hendrix inspired dirty clean classic rock riff
20:29 Groovy classic rock riff
21:04 Indie rock barre chords
21:58 Aeolus volume control roll-off test
22:37 Indie octave chords riff
23:11 Kings Of Leon inspired epic indie rock riff
23:45 Indie rhythm chords

Crunchier Sounds
24:48 Hard rock rhythm tone
25:04 Classic hard rock riff
25:40 Glam rock riff
26:11 Hard rock riff
26:46 Foo Fighters inspired modern alt rock riff
27:24 Chunky alt rock chords
28:21 Modern alt rock riff

High gain overdrive sounds
28:51 Pop punk riff
29:21 Pop punk melodic lead riff
29:56 Progressive rock riff (Drop D tuning)
30:29 Modern rock palm-muted power chords (Drop D tuning)

Clean Channel w/Revv G3 Distortion Pedal (all in Drop D tuning)
31:20 Hardcore chugging riff
31:51 Mastodon inspired metal riff with country twang
32:03 Hardcore punk riff
32:35 Thrash metal riff
32:46 Lead sounds
33:11 Classic heavy metal/sludge riff

33:44 My thoughts on the Aeolus’s versatility
35:04 First impressions on seeing and playing the Aeolus
36:28 What other guitars for €400 can compete with the Aeolus?
36:48 Sounds and the versatility of the Tesla pickups
39:30 Build quality and hardware
42:02 Untidy work inside the f holes
42:48 Price/value for money considerations
43:51 What else can you get for €400?
44:16 Things I don’t like about the Aeolus:
44:29 That untidy work inside the body
44:47 No binding inside the f holes
45:10 Selector switch wired the wrong way
46:04 Volume difference between humbucker and single coil mode
46:47 The name Aeolus
47:43 Final conclusion
48:48 Any questions? And there’s more Aeolus content to come!
I ran the Aeolus into my Hughes & Kettner Black Spirit 200 head, using my Wampler Pantheon for the overdrive and my Revv G3 for the heavy distortion sounds. The amp went from the Red Box DI straight into my Focusrite Scarlett 2i4, which went into Logic Pro X. That's it. No post-processing on the sounds was done.

Here’s some links to those bits of gear:

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H&K Black Spirit 200 head: https://bit.ly/HKBS200rwm
Wampler Pantheon: http://bit.ly/PantheonRWM
Revv G3: https://bit.ly/RevvG3RWM
Focusrite 4i4: http://bit.ly/rwmFR4i4
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Enjoy!

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Backing music from the YouTube Audio Library: Get Tough – TrackTribe.

#HarleyBenton #Aeolus #HarleyBentonGuitar

*Note: certain links in the description are affiliate links. If you click said links and purchase anything as a result, I will receive a small commission. This doesn’t cost you anything extra, but it does help to support the channel. So, if you do that, thank you very much!*

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