First Act ME-506

Full size fret board...body seems about 1/2 in shorter in length than Tele. Has nice little contour for play comfort. Single pickup, located near bridge. Body is solid. Neck is a "D" shape...and slightly wider than a standard Strat. The finish on the neck is bit uneven.

Single cutaway...kind of like an Tele ...but a "little horn'...not the soft bumper-style Tele.

Bought it on ebay for $105 (including shipping). Was interested in finding out about First Act since they also make high end customs.

Warm like a Les Paul. Nice sustain. Sustains like a Rick but not as jangly. It has a surprisingly great tone. Very live.
Impressed.

As stated above: Neck finish is a little funky. I'll steel wool that down and put alight finish on it. Body is okay...I don't notice finish all that much -- so this looks fine to me.

I don't have a live gig...so, no opinion on the 'live sound'. When first unpacked I plugged it into a little 10W Kingston tube set up in the front room. Had a great dirty warm noise. Kind of like the Steve Earle's guitars..or that guy in Black Keys. Plugged it into a Peavey Blues Classic and played it clean and dirty...WOW!!!

Knobs are plastic but function fine. Strap buttons are okay--the tuners and bridge are on the par of a Bullet or Squire. Not top shelf but they have integrity.

Suggest you snap one of these up for $100...will be a collectors item (like a Delectro...or a Del Ray...). Better sounding than any guitar $400 and under.

Unique body style- single cutaway with the horn reversed. Vaguely similar to a Les Paul but not likely to be mistaken for an LP copy.

Simple controls: 1 humbucker pickup, volume and tone control knobs.

Made in China - Purchased in Nov 2005.

Nicely made for a low cost Asian made guitar. Super glossy paint (Black), attractive maple neck, chrome hardware. The downside is a kind of roughly finished rosewood fretboard. The edge of the fretboard is nice and smooth though so it plays fine. Like most asian made guitars, the tuning gears are less than perfect, but they do the job. The volume and tone control knobs are cheap chrome over plastic. The jack works really well though (better than my Fender Strat).

This guitar has really nice tone. Tons of sustain and a little natural vibrato. I had planned to change out the humbucker pickup but I like the nice crunchy sound of the pickup so much I'm going to leave it as is. The original strings were way cheap/crappy but after changing them out for some .010 and up D'Addario strings the tone got deeper and crunchier. All things considered it has an amazing sound for such a low-price guitar.

Everything was put together well enough but the setup is not in ready to play condition. You have to wonder how somebody pulling a $100 guitar out of a box is going to deal with the prospect of paying $30 to have somebody set it up for them. The action height was different for each string, with the low E being a full string guage higher than any other string. The intonation was way off but with the cheap strings included it couldn't be corrected. Once I got a new set of strings installed and the action sorted out, everything was just fine.

I have read other reviews that criticize FirstAct guitars for not staying in tune. I haven't had any problem with this one and in fact it will often still be in tune after several days of not being used.

The rest of the guitar was as nicely made as you could expect for the price. The neck was nice and straight and everything is fitted together well enough. The only issue is a few rough spots on the rosewook fretboard.

The only thing I would worry about would be the nut. I can't even guess what it's made of but it's clearly not a bone nut so I would expect it to wear pretty fast. The rest of the guitar is so simple it's hard to imagine anything failing on it. The jack is solid and the bridge and saddles are as well made as anything on a Fender or Squier.

As it happens I emailed First Act a couple of times to inquire about the pickup which I had originally intended to replace. The reply came back really fast and they were very helpful. I would rate the support to be on par with Fender (I've contacted both).

Overall I would recommend this guitar to anyone who wants something low cost and simple in design. It has a unique and cool shape that really doesn't look like a clone of anything. It has wonderful tone and works as well as you could expect for the price.