These days, the adventurous player looking for an extended-range instrument to take their riffs down into a lower register has no shortage of options, different models, different specs at a range of price points.
The extended-range guitar went mainstream long ago. Okay, it took a while to catch fire, for Korn to use Steve Vai’s Ibanez Universe seven-string guitars, for others to follow suit, then Meshuggah’s bruising low-end apocalyptic rhythm machine came along and took metal guitar rampaging into the bass guitar's frequencies with eight-string guitars. And it officially became thing.
And yet consider the southpaw player – the left-handed player is often ill-served when it comes to more the niche builds. Eight-string guitars? Good luck finding one of them at your local store. Well, enter, Harley Benton… The German budget gear brand has just expanded its 2026 lineup with a left-handed multi-scale 8-string – officially a rare bird – and furthermore it is as cheap as chips.
The R-458MN LH WH MS is priced just £209/$285 – via Thomann, the owner of Harley Benton – and that’s with a gig-bag included. For a few dollars more you can get it bundled with a hard-shell case. And it has everything that a player on a budget needs to get orientated with all that, y’know, extra guitar that comes with an eight-string.
In some ways it’s like a completely different instrument to your regular guitar. Tuned low-to-high in standard as F♯BEADGB but oftentimes with the low eight string tuned down a whole step to put the guitar in Dropped E, the eight-string can take some getting used to.
A guitar like this, allows you to test the waters for not too much outlay. It has a poplar body, a maple neck that joins the body with five bolts (there is a lot more neck here, with the width at the nut an epic 54 mm stretch), and you have a pair of Harley Benton’s Hi-Gain humbuckers. The neck profile is a Speed-D.
The maple fingerboard has a radius is 13.8”. There are volume and tone controls and a three-way pickup selector and all this is all very normal and familiar electric guitar stuff.
But this is a multi-scale design, arguably the preferred format for extended-range models with such designs on the low end.
On the eighth-string the scale length measures 27.2”, with a more regulation Fender-esque 25.5” on the high E. The eight-saddle bridge is easily adjustable, and ergo you have a platform for high-gain adventures that also has solid intonation.
The R-458MN LH WH MS is out now, in high-gloss white – and yes, Harley Benton makes a right-handed version too. Check it out at Harley Benton, or over at Thomann where you can actually buy it.
