Which is the best sub $300 Tele?! Harley Benton TE-62 CC vs Slick Guitars SL 55 | Guitar Shootout

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Today, we’re comparing two great sub $300 Telecaster type electric guitars: it’s the Harley Benton TE-62CC up against the Slick Guitars SL 55!

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Get the TE-62CC here:
Slick Guitars:
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Every guitarist needs a Tele in their collection, but it doesn’t have to be a Fender or a Squier. Pretty much every guitar company under the sun makes a Telecaster-inspired model, and here we’re looking at two contenders on the budget end of the price spectrum.

The Harley Benton TE-62CC is a classic Tele in looks – the beautiful Lake Placid Blue finish is simply timeless. Paired with a roasted maple neck and fingerboard, this guitar really looks the part. For the €149 asking price, you get nice specs too: the body is basswood, and the Roswell pickups are traditional T-style. The neck, however, is quite a modern feeling one, with a Modern D profile – not too slim, but lovely and slinky – a 648 mm/25.5” scale length, and a 12” fingerboard radius.

The Slick SL 55 is a different beast all round. At first glance, it’s a sandblasted Cabronita Tele… but there’s twists all over this one! At $270/€430 it’s a more expensive choice than the Harley Benton, but you’re paying for some pretty cool features on this one too.

That sandblasted body is indeed ash – this finish is called Black Ash – and you also get a maple neck and a black walnut fingerboard. The entire guitar feels pretty naked, with hardly any finishing going on either on the body or the neck.

The interesting twist with the SL 55 is the fact that we have the T-style body but with Gibson neck measurements: a 630 mm/24.75” scale length and a 12” fingerboard radius. Add this to the pair of Earl Slick-designed “hard vintage” GFTron Filtertron-style pickups and the unusual raw brass hardware, and you’ve got a guitar that is certainly its own thing.

Now, I’m a huge fan of the Fender Telecaster – I love its non-nonsense simplicity and its tonal versatility. It can do everything from sparkly country to mellow jazz on clean settings, and sounds great for rock and indie on its biting bridge pickup too. So, let’s see how the TE-62 and the SL 55 get on! Let me know which guitar you prefer in the comments.

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

00:00 Hello!
00:15 Introduction
01:09 Harley Benton TE-62CC LPB specs and info
03:00 Slick SL 55 specs and info
05:08 Today’s rig and plan

Clean Sounds
05:53 Clean tone reference chords on all pickup settings
06:22 Poppy barre chords
06:51 Grungey droning chords
07:09 Country ballad arpeggios
07:21 Country lead sound
07:33 Funky rhythms
07:46 Ascending droning indie chords
07:59 Atmospheric indie arpeggios

Light & Medium Overdrive Sounds
08:18 Fat indie rock rhythm chords
08:48 Choppy barre chords
09:06 Indie pop picked arpeggios
09:41 Kings Of Leon inspired riff
09:57 Droning alt rock riff
10:17 Indie octave chords
10:46 Classic rock riff
10:58 Hendrix inspired riff
11:15 Groovy classic rock riff
11:41 AC/DC inspired riff
11:55 Airbourne inspired rock riff
12:16 Quacky rock riff

Heavy Overdrive Sounds
12:25 Van Halen inspired riff
12:44 Melodic hard rock single note riff
13:05 80s rock riff
13:24 Pop punk riff
13:50 Pop punk melodic lead riff
14:06 Modern rock palm-muted chords (Drop D tuning)
14:30 Rage Against The Machine inspired groovy riff (Drop D)

Heavy Distortion Sounds (all in Drop D)
14:47 Heavy metal lead neck pickup sound
15:02 Metal chugging riff
15:19 Rammstein inspired industrial metal riff
15:32 Hardcore punk riff

15:48 My thoughts
16:38 First impressions and looks
17:16 Price
17:46 Build quality and hardware
18:59 Playability and neck
19:47 Weight
20:36 Sounds and pickups discussion
22:16 What other similar guitars are out there?
23:16 Which of these two guitars should you buy?
24:18 Which one would I buy?

My setup was as follows: I ran the two guitars into my Hughes & Kettner Black Spirit 200 head, also using my Greer Lightspeed and my Revv G3 pedals for overdrive and 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.

Get all this gear at Thomann:
Get all this gear at Sweetwater:

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Backing music from the YouTube Audio Library: Duck In The Alley – TrackTribe.

#HarleyBenton #SlickGuitars #HarleyBentonGuitar #Telecaster #Cabronita #Thomann #HarleyBentonGuitars #HarleyBentonOfficial #LakePlacidBlue

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