MODERN MUSIC STAFF 2: Well, they're their own company as far as I know, and they make everything from like what we were talking about, the lower end stuff all the way up to the handmade here in the States, you know. You'll find everything from this one that happens to be a couple of hundred dollars, that's $420 net is what we're selling it for, and they make them up to a couple of thousand dollars I believe, at least over a thousand dollars.

PATRICK OGLE: So do you have any idea? Where are they located? Are they [OVERLAPPING]?

MODERN MUSIC STAFF 2: I think they're at Mass -- The ones that are made here, I believe, are up at Massachusetts somewhere. Let's see if they have the address in here. Of course not.

They play pretty good and it sounds good. I mean these are humbucking pickups so they sound fat and they kind of sound like a Les Paul, the same sort of idea as a Les Paul. That's the basic idea I'm sure, but I don't think the public doesn't know the name so they can be very funny about that stuff, you know.

PATRICK OGLE: Yeah. I think a lot of people buy stuff.

MODERN MUSIC STAFF 2: Gibson, Fender, they know those, you know. It also depends on these guys whether or not they push it and how big of an advertising push they have, you know, and whose hands they get it into, who's playing it. There were a couple of fairly well-known people, of course I can't remember their names right now, that were playing them, and we had some advertising, you know, to help push it with that, but it didn't seem to work.

PATRICK OGLE: [INDISCERNIBLE]

MODERN MUSIC STAFF 2: Tom's got one.

MODERN MUSIC STAFF 1: I actually do have one of those.

PATRICK OGLE: What do you think of it.

MODERN MUSIC STAFF 1: It's okay for what it is. The one I have is the one that they were giving away with Volkswagens. Remember the commercial, "You buy a Volkswagen, you get a guitar." It was First Act, and what it is, it has a preamp built into it so you can plug it in to the MP3 player in your car and you can get a rock amp sound out of your car stereo with that guitar.

PATRICK OGLE: With that exact one right there?

MODERN MUSIC STAFF 1: Well, it's similar. Same make. It's very similar to that guitar but it has a preamp built in, you have to put a battery in. You can plug it into a regular amp and you have to have the preamp off then, but if you plug it in to your MP3 player in your car or my truck, it doesn't have to be a Volkswagen, then you turn the preamp on and you get like a Marshall amp sound out of it like you saw Slash playing one on TV. They're not bad but now they stopped that promotion and that particular guitar I actually bought one at a garage sale. Someone who bought a Volkswagen didn't want the guitar, I got it for 50 bucks, but they're worth about 800 bucks. Now, First Act's putting that kind of guitar out without buying a Volkswagen and they're about 800 bucks. The guy that plays from Maroon 5 plays one of them.

PATRICK OGLE: Is that [OVERLAPPING]

MODERN MUSIC STAFF 1: He plays one of the high-end guitar -- the high-end First Acts. So, like he said, name and familiarity has a lot to do with it. Fender and Gibson has got that wrapped up. There's companies like Paul Reed Smith and stuff too but Jay Turser makes decent guitars for, you know, entrhy-level prices and First Act's about the same thing but First Act is making some high-end ones too that list for $1,500, $2,000, you know. That's not one of them but --

I'm sure that different models have different necks on them, you know. That's the thing. Every guitar player has got different preferences on neck shapes. I don't like real thick like the early '50s Fenders with thick baseball bat type necks. They sound great but I don't like the feel of that neck myself. John's Les Paul, he had the neck shaved to make it thinner.

MODERN MUSIC STAFF 2: Yeah, so it's like an old SG neck, which is thin, depth, and wide. That way, you know, width across the fingerboard, because I got fat little fingers, so it makes it easier to get them in between them when it's a wide fingerboard.