Van Halen Shoes

Ok, I admit that this is not directly guitar related, but it is tangentially related. After I purchased our Van Halen tickets earlier this month, my wife bought me the greatest pair of shoes I’ve ever owned for my birthday. She also bought herself a pair of flip flops to wear at the concert (it’s at an outdoor venue and will be in late summer).

They’re the official EVH shoes from the Van Halen Store. I wore them while playing live a couple of weeks ago. They’re not the most comfortable shoes I’ve ever had (although they aren’t uncomfortable), but hey, they’re Van Halen shoes so I’m not complaining. So now I guess I can “hit the ground runnin’.”

Ain’t Talkin’ (or more appropriately, ain’t singin’)

I’m working on doing a recording of Van Halen’s Ain’t Talkin Bout Love. I recorded vocals myself but it’s just a little out of my range, so I’ve asked my brother to record the vocals instead. I’ve got the basic mix down, and once I get the vocal track from him, I’ll do a final mix/master. We’re basically collaborating through email as I’m in Ohio and he’s in Tennessee. As usual, I’m using a drum loop, and I’m playing all guitar and bass parts. The guitar is a single take, including solos, with some post processing effects added to the solo sections.

Here’s what I have so far (minus the vocals I started to record myself):

Ain’t Talkin Cover

Once my brother is finished recording his part, I’ll upload a final version.

Custom Dungeon Roll Playmat

I mentioned several weeks ago in a review of the Dungeon Roll dice game that I had ordered a custom play mat printed on a glasses cleaning cloth.

I was away for about a week and it had arrived in the mail while I was gone. I’m pretty happy with how it turned out (the blur in the bottom right of the picture is not actually on the mat, but is just apparently from me shaking with excitement when I took the picture. Or maybe just bad focusing, I don’t know).

The great thing about having it printed on a cloth rather than using a paper print out is that it folds up and fits nice and neatly in the Dungeon Roll box.

As I mentioned in the other post, I got the image from boardgamegeek.com where the creator of the image uploaded it to share with the gaming community.

D&D Adventure System: Castle Ravenloft Board Game

It’s no secret that I’m a pretty big fan of Dungeons & Dragons. Just a click or two around the site will make that pretty apparent.

Having said that, I’ve always wanted a board game that captured at least a little bit of the D&D feel, but without the need for a large chunk of time to be set aside to play, and without the need for a complex rule system.

So, it was with great anticipation that I ordered the Castle Ravenloft board game, which is part of the D&D Adventure System series of board games.

HD500X 5150 Amp Model Sound Sample

A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned that the new Line 6 model packs for the HD500X multi-effects pedal had been released. One of my main interests in the new model packs was the inclusion of the Peavey 5150 amp model, which Line 6 has named “PV Panama” in keeping with their practice of naming amp models in creative ways, rather than naming them the same as the real amp.

Now that I’ve purchased the model packs, I created a sample recording of the raw sound of the 5150 model on the HD500X.

Dungeon Roll: A Fun Little Press Your Luck Game

Several months ago, I started seeing ads for a little game called Dungeon Roll with a cool little treasure chest for a case. I happened to catch it on sale for $9.99 and decided to buy it.

Dungeon Roll is a “press-your-luck” dice rolling game where you roll dice to create a party of adventurers and delve into a dungeon to collect treasure and experience points. It can be played solo or with up to 4 players.

Line 6 Has Released 3 New Model Packs for the HD Series

POD users have been asking for Line 6 to add the 5150 amp model (among others) to the POD series for some time now. I know this to be true because I’ve read the requests over and over on the Line 6 forums, and yes, I am one of the ones who was hopeful that we’d get the 5150 amp model eventually. I use the 5150 model on my Peavey Vypyr amp and it’s the one I’ve missed having the most on my HD500X.

Awhile back, Line 6 finally announced three upcoming model packs that would include a number of new amps, including the 5150. The new packs have finally been released, and prices are $49 for each guitar amp model pack, and $29 for the bass pack. You can get all three for $99. Now we’ll all have 17,000 new amp models (or maybe less, I didn’t actually count) to play with and tweak while our families just roll their eyes at us wondering what’s so fun about playing with a big guitar pedal.

The 3 new model packs are: