Harley Benton DC-Custom II vs Epiphone SG Classic Worn P90s | Which is best?! Cheap Guitar Shootout

Today we’re comparing the 2024 Harley Benton DC-Custom II against the Epiphone SG Classic P90s in Worn Inverness Green!

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Get the DC-Custom II here: https://thmn.to/thoprod/570320?offid=...

Get an Epiphone SG at Thomann: https://thmn.to/thoprod/483482?offid=...
At Sweetwater: https://sweetwater.sjv.io/0Z1aQE
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The new DC-Custom II is a fantastic guitar on paper for €299. For that money, you get a meranti body and neck, and a roasted jatoba fingerboard. The neck’s made to the Gibson 628 mm scale length with a fingerboard radius of 350 mm and a 42 mm graphite nut, and you get Grover tuners and 24 Blacksmith stainless steel frets. Yep, stainless steel frets for €299!

The body is a more offset, metal looking take on the SG – it reminds me a lot of an ESP/LTD Viper 256 – and the white finish and gold hardware make for a really elegant look. Pickups are a pair of Tesla TM VR-Nitro humbuckers, with a coil split too, which should make this guitar extra versatile.

I’ve had my beautiful Epiphone SG Classic Worn P90 guitar since 2020, and although I got mine used for €250, the guitar will set you back around $400-450/€450 new these days (although recently I’ve seen some stores clearing them out for €330!).

For the money, you get a satin mahogany body and neck, Epiphone Pro soapbar P90 pickups, and a D-shaped slim taper neck with 21 medium jumbo frets on an Indian laurel board. The scale length is 24.75” and the fingerboard radius is 12”.

So, we’re looking at two Gibson SG-types here at similar affordable prices, but with majorly different features. And which is best? Well, hopefully this video can help you answer that question! Here, I play the two guitars in as many musical styles as possible for you (from country, folk and indie, to pop, rock, punk, metal, and more), so you can really hear how they compare – and hopefully we can decide on which is the best SG for under $500!

Let me know which one you think is best in the comments!

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

00:00 Hello!
00:19 Intro and what we’re doing today
01:53 Harley Benton DC-Custom II specs and info
04:39 Epiphone SG specs and info
06:44 Today’s rig and plan

Clean Sounds
07:56 Clean tone reference chords on all pickup settings
08:41 Country ballad arpeggios
08:53 Strummed country chords
09:12 Funky rhythms
09:26 Wolfmother inspired droning riff
09:46 Atmospheric indie arpeggios

Light & Medium Overdrive Sounds
10:04 Garage rock riff
10:21 Indie rock rhythm chords
10:51 Indie octave chords
11:17 Kings Of Leon inspired riff
11:32 Open string droning riff
11:44 Upbeat indie barre chords
12:08 Modern rock ballad arpeggios
12:44 Classic rock riff
12:58 Airbourne inspired rock riff
13:09 Quacky rock riff
13:19 AC/DC inspired riff
13:34 Hendrix inspired riff

Heavy Overdrive Sounds
13:51 Glam rock riff
14:11 Van Halen inspired riff
14:30 Classic hard rock riff
14:47 Melodic hard rock single note riff
15:08 Alternative rock riff
15:31 Pop punk riff
15:54 Thrash metal riff
16:04 Progressive rock riff (Drop D tuning)
16:20 Modern rock palm-muted chords (Drop D)
16:45 Rage Against The Machine inspired groovy riff (Drop D)

Heavy Distortion Sounds (all in Drop D)
17:02 Metal chugging riff
17:19 Hardcore punk riff
17:31 Heavy metal lead sound
17:47 Hardcore punk breakdown
18:02 Mastodon inspired metal riff with country twang
18:14 Rammstein inspired industrial metal riff

18:28 My thoughts
19:32 First impressions and looks
20:21 Price
21:21 Build quality and hardware
22:38 Playability and necks
23:39 Weight
24:04 Balance and neck dive?
24:31 Sounds and pickups discussion
27:17 What other similar guitars are out there?
28:10 Which one should you buy? Which 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: https://thmn.to/thocf/jkhog8l06m
Get all this gear at Sweetwater: https://sweetwater.sjv.io/LXqdE0

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

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