An Update (Or, No News is Good News. . . )

Hello RS fans and followers of my blog. I have not abandoned the effort, but I only just now realized how long it has been since I posted anything new. Mostly this is because I spend a lot of time outdoors in the summer - mostly at ball parks scoring baseball and softball games for my kids' teams. So, none of us have played much Rocksmith for the past few months.

We did take the XBox with us on vacation last month - but we never played it. I also took my new Ibanez acoustic - which I picked up very cheap at a GC sale early this summer. That I did drag down to the pool a few times and I actually did strum chords for a few non-RS songs. Also, I had a paying gig as a drummer a month or so ago; that looked promising as a possible long-term deal, but now I'm starting to have my doubts. . . Sigh. That seems to be how it always goes!

On the Rocksmith front, I am looking forward to the new 2014 edition. I haven't pre-ordered yet, but I plan to do that soon. Lots of very exciting new features and improvements to look forward to!

Also, Steam had an irresistable deal on the PC version of RS several weeks ago so I broke down and bought the full version of RS for PC. When it comes to playing RS on my desktop system upstairs. . . no joy. But, that's an ancient computer. No surprise that it can't handle RS. No biggie - I'll try it on my wife's laptop or my newer desktop system soon and let you know how that goes. If I could play RS without lugging the XBox system around, that'd be great!

They stopped selling new DLC when they announced the 2014 version of RS, but I've picked up a few songs that I didn't have yet. Wild Thing was one of them. Haven't tried playing it yet.

Guitar-wise, I picked up a really sweet Epiphone LP Special with P90s really cheap this summer (same day I bought the Ibanez acoustic). Plays like a dream and doesn't weigh a ton. Cost me LESS than the Epi LP Spl II I bought a few years ago as a scratch-and-dent! That LP had a few rough frets that I never bothered to fix - one of which was bad enough to draw blood. Plus it was very heavy. My new P90 Epi is smooth as silk right out of the box. I ended up selling off the old one.

I also sold off a couple of amps this summer - my old Crate bass amp and my practically new Peavey Vyper 75 (with the factory sticker still on the grille!). Both were just sitting around gathering dust and neither one of them sounded that good. The Crate had been repaired after I broke off one of the input jacks and it never sounded the same. The Vyper was just another digital modeling amp that could make all kinds of very loud noises but never sounded that great. I took a big loss on it since Peavey has come out with new Vyper models. Oh well. I probably made money on the Crate. I bought it about 8 years ago for $15!

To replace my amps, I got a barely used Vox AC15. I had no idea that one amp could sound so much better than another amp. Even I can hear the difference! This is just a really quality amplifier and way nicer than what I deserve. Will probably be my last amp. What else would I possibly need?

Right now I have two more guitars on lay-away: a Michael Kelly with humbuckers and an Ibanez GIO that my son liked. I'm planning to trade my PRS Tremonti SE in on the Michael Kelly. The PRS really stopped being "THE" guitar when I got my Tele, so I'm OK with getting rid of it. I'll probably sell my Ibanez Artcore hollow-body, too. (I should sell the Gretch, but I won't. Not yet, anyway.) The GIO is just a cheapie that my son took a liking to. Plays fine and sounds fine. He just fell in love with the matte finish cammo paint job (apparently factory). Plus, it came with a case that's probably worth more than the guitar!

That's about it for now. I'll try to post some photos soon. Thanks for staying tuned in!