Harley Benton SC DLX Gotoh vs Vintage ICON V100MRBK vs Epiphone Les Paul | Budget singlecut shootout

Today we’re comparing the Harley Benton SC DLX Gotoh against the Vintage ICON V100MRBK and the Epiphone Les Paul Traditional Pro to found out which is the best affordable singlecut guitar out there right now!

I’ve had my 2014 Epiphone Les Paul Traditional Pro since 2014, and I’ve never really found another similarly priced LP-type that can compete with it… but these days plenty of companies are having a go, with Harley Benton and Vintage at the top of the pile.

Get the SC DLX Gotoh here: https://bit.ly/SCDLXGotoh
Get the Vintage V100MRBK here: https://bit.ly/V100MRBKrwm
This is the newer version of my Epi Les Paul: https://redir.love/thoprod/482445?off...

These guitars all have great quality specs for the money. The €330 SC DLX has a Gotoh bridge and tuners, stainless steel frets, a Graph Tech nut and Tesla humbuckers (with a coil split), while the Vintage has a Graph Tech nut, Wilkinson humbuckers and Grover tuners. My Epi has Grover tuners and Epiphone ProBucker humbuckers (which you can also split), and I had a bone nut put on it a few years ago.

The three guitars all have mahogany necks with rosewood boards, and they’re all Gibson scale length (24.75” or 628mm)… but they all have different neck profiles. That, combined with the different pickups, means they will all sound and play a little differently.

But which is best? That’s what we’re trying to find out! In this video, I play a bunch of riffs on the three guitars in a wide variety of stales, from pop, country and indie to rock, punk and metal, to find out which one if the best affordable Les Paul!


Here are the links to the different playing samples and talking parts:

00:00 Hello!
00:11 Intro and what we’re doing today
01:31 SC DLX Gotoh specs/info
03:28 Vintage V100MRBK specs/info
04:37 Epiphone specs/info
06:48 Today’s rig

Clean Sounds
07:36 Clean tone reference chords on all pickups/coil splits
09:19 Poppy barre chords
10:09 Blues progression
10:51 Country lead sound
11:15 Country ballad arpeggios
11:56 Atmospheric droning indie chords
12:57 Ringing open indie pop chords

Crunch Sounds (Clean Channel w/Greer Lightspeed)
13:53 AC/DC inspired classic rock riff
14:41 Airbourne inspired classic rock riff
15:15 Classic rock riff
16:12 Groovy classic rock riff
16:59 Hendrix inspired classic rock riff
17:49 Fat indie rhythm chords
18:38 Edgy indie rock chords
19:21 Droning indie open string riff
19:57 Indie rock barre chords
21:13 Indie octave chords riff
22:28 Garage rock riff

Lead Channel Sounds
23:14 Classic hard rock riff
24:07 Hard rock riff
24:59 Glam rock riff
25:41 Foo Fighters inspired modern rock riff
26:35 Alternative rock riff
27:18 Green Day inspired punk rock riff
28:02 Pop punk melodic lead riff
28:51 Punk rock power chords
29:35 Progressive rock riff (Drop D tuning)
30:25 Modern rock palm-muted power chords (Drop D tuning)
31:40 Rage Against The Machine inspired groovy riff (Drop D tuning)

Clean Channel w/Revv G3 Distortion Pedal (all in Drop D tuning)
32:30 Hardcore chugging riff
33:19 Hardcore punk riff
34:07 Thrash metal riff
34:38 Lead sounds
35:14 Classic heavy metal/sludge riff


36:57 My thoughts
37:41 Build quality and hardware
41:06 Weight
41:52 Necks and playability
44:25 Sounds and pickups discussion
48:04 My favorite purely on sound terms
48:59 What’s the other competition?
51:43 Which guitar is best? And which would I buy?
54:02 Final conclusion and goodbye


I ran the three guitars into my Hughes & Kettner Black Spirit 200 head, using my Greer Lightspeed 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
Greer Lightspeed: https://bit.ly/GreerLightspeedRWM
Revv G3: https://bit.ly/RevvG3RWM
Focusrite 4i4 (this is the newer equivalent of my 2i4, which they don’t make any more!): https://redir.love/thoprod/467952?off...
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Enjoy!


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Backing music from the YouTube Audio Library: Dusty Fingers – DJ Williams.

#HarleyBenton #HarleyBentonGuitar #VintageGuitars #Epiphone #SCDLXGotoh #HarleyBentonGuitars #VintageTone #EpiphoneLesPaul #VintageGuitars #VintageGuitars_Official


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