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! ----- 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 ----- 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 --- Backing music from the YouTube Audio Library: Duck In The Alley – TrackTribe. #HarleyBenton #Epiphone #EpiphoneSG #EpiphoneGuitars #HarleyBentonGuitar #HarleyBentonGuitars #HarleyBentonOfficial #Thomann #SGGuitar 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! ‪@OfficialEpiphone‬ ‪@HarleyBentonOfficial‬ ‪@ThomannsGuitarsBasses‬ ‪@ThomannMusic‬