First Act Discovery Electric Guitar

everything is conveniently located, very nice. Just purchased the model 301

I'm new at guitar music, but I think the insturment has very rich strong tone. and fingers lightly

To me the finish is just as nice as a much more expensive Fender. very well setup. I can't imagine a guitar being any better than this model 301

Can't say how long this insturment will last. Since I've tuned it, it has remain in good tune. Appears to be as well built and any other expensive guitar I've admired. I may be a novice, but I have no complaints about my insturment. I would be proud to show it at any occasion

Played when I was a youth. No questions about the insturment. If the guitar were to go missing, I would buy another just like it. I love the looks. Very very nice. Feels good in my hands. Lends itself willingly. Conpared it to all the high dollar insturments after its purchase, I'm not a bit disapointed. Sell sell sell

Ah yes, it's been years since I have put a review down here, but anyway, let's get on with my reviewer insanity. Anyway, the guitar in question today people is the First Act Discovery "Little Kids" electric guitar (and I say little kids because I sure looked funny walking out of the store, this 6 foot 4 strapin' dude, and here I am with a cheezy little electric guitar with pictures of tikes playing twinkle twinkle little star to their hearts content). Anyay, it was made in 2004, by First Act, It was made in Taiwan I believe (I took the sticker off too soon), and this guitar can easily be bought at Wal-Mart for dirt cheap (well, dirt cheap for a guitar). It has 19 frets, a plywood body thats 40 mm thick, one volume knob, one power button, a headphone jack, a 2" speaker, and an output jack. THe electronics are unlisted option #3, as this guitar has an amplifier built into it, but also can be output to a regular amp like a normal electric guitar. It has one little single coil pickup, same kind you find in Harmony, Hondo, and other cheapie strat copies. The body is shaped kind of like a Les Paul with the horn flattened, with a maple neck with a rosewood (???) fretboard, the frets are small and look like they are made of copper. The bridge is one of those el-cheapo stratocaster hard-tail knockoffs, the tuners are cheap tuners that attempt to look decent (and do), the Neck Scale length is somewhere around 20" or so, and it has pearl dots. The guitar came with a manual, warranty booklet, hex wrench (for the bridge saddles), 2 extra strings, and a tiny guitar strap that I somehow managed to get to fit me, needless to say, I look ridiculous playing this thing with that strap though. Not much on features, but hey, what do you expect, it's a $69 guitar for little kids. Gotta give it a 6 anyway, it does have the amplifer in it.

Aw man. To start, I'm an Experimental/Metal/Hard Rock guitarst, just imagining myself playing one of these outside of songwriting and with full seriousness is enough to make me want to committ myself. But anyway let's get to the review......

Part I: The Internal Amp

First off, the whole reason I bought this guitar was so I'd have something to noodle around the house on. Besides, it's easy to smuggle around, when the power goes out I can still play Van-Halen songs without sounding TOO funny. As for the sound, it sounds kind of like the part in Cheech and Chong's "Nice Dreams" where Tommy Chong plays his Gibson ES-335 through the speaker of his Ice Cream truck, nice and blatty, kind of like a milk carton with a speaker on it. If you turn it up to 10 it gets rather loud considering the size of the guitar, but it also distorts with a nice Bo Diddly 50's type distortion sound. THe Midrange is rather accentuated, the bass is almost non-existant, and the treble is tight and warm, but a little sheering at times.

Goin On' The Amplifier

Next I'll run this thing through my custom rig, a Peavey Basic 112 (bass amp) and a Digi-Tech RP-200A. Plug this pint sized pixie into an amp with REAL effects, and it sounds ok, but it still sounds more like a 2X4 with wires on it than an actual electric guitar, however, this effect can be used to incredible effect if one knows how to harness it's "powers"

The set up was atrocious, but then it is a childs guitar, it's not like action matters. Hey, it don't matter that it had half an inch of action, little tykes were going to use this thing anyway, that is, until my madness told me to buy the twisted device. A plus was it was ALMOST in tune when i took it out of the box, the minus is that the action was high, and they shipped this thing using NINE GAUGE STRINGS! That just don't work on a guitar of this type if you want a serious electric guitar (well, semi serious actually). The only design flaw I saw is that they bridge saddles are WAY higher than the end of the neck by default, and to put them low enough to have REAL low action makes them buzz, however, it is surprising the neck can actually take really low action. Major points are down for cold solder joints in the electronics, and for the single coil having lots of rust on it.

Heh, this guitar is not just my noodling guitar, but my homedefense system, just hit the arse over the head with it, I'm sure it will stand. I plan to use this at a gig someday to play Van-Halen's "Little Guitars", but I think it will take some minor adjustments (and probably a Humbucker). Either way, it's a cool cheap little guitar. Actually, this thing already fell on the flor once, and theres not a scratch on it.

Never going to deal with First Act, since they are basically a rehash on Rok Axe (hey, anybody remember my old review, yes, I still believe Rok Axes are made out of styrofoam polymer!). However, it is funny they actually consider this enough of a guitar to provide extra strings, what dummy would try to tune the low E to high E, you'd think they would notice the Truss-Rod-Less neck bowing at some point, wouldn't they?

I've been playing 10 years now, and I've owned lots of guitars, including Kramers, Fenders, Squiers, home brews, and I currently still have most of them (ahem, damn theif who stole my ex-girlfriend's Squier Affinity Strat with a Blue Moto Pickguard, if I find you, you're dead, get it!). If this thing got stolen, I'd just buy another one, probably next year's model will have 2 pickups instad of one. I bought it because it was kinda small and cute lookin, all the while being utilitarian for professional noodlers and experimenters with guitars like me. However, it's more of a novelty than a serious thing.