NGD Ormsby Guitars Run 2 GTR TX Carbon

[VitaminG]

Took delivery of this bad boy a little while ago. Ormsby have started building guitars at World Music in South Korea. You might remember Perry as rhoads56 here on the JCF.

It sounds great & plays awesome. Quality is outstanding. Perry and team are performing final QC in his workshop, but turnaround is getting better as WMI incorporates his feedback from Run 1, leaving Perry & co. with less to do.

It's the first time I've ever played a fanned fret guitar. It takes minutes to adjust. And switching back to my other guitars takes little adjustment too.

Ormsby Guitars TX GTR Carbon in Ink Blue. Multiscale (25.5" high E, 27.5" low E), 29 stainless steel frets on an ebony fretboard, luminlay side dots, Hipshot locking tuners & bridge custom made in the US for Ormsby, stringthrough body, black body & neck binding, carbon fibre pickguard, Ormsby's own pickups. Finished in blue pearl over black.


What's remarkable about this finish is that that's not actually blue paint. It's a black base coat with a pearlescent blue finish. That means the finish varies wildly from the bright blue you see here in direct sunlight, to black with a faint suggestion of blue along reflective edges in lower light. I can't wait to see what it does under stage lights.

[xenophobe]

Grats!

All of the WMI Ormsbys are looking incredible. I really wish I got in on the ebony Goliath run, but some of those HypeGTRs are pretty freaking amazing too.

I know I want one, just not sure which one I want yet.

[VitaminG]

thanks xeno. You know, they're about to launch Run 4B today, and are reopening 4A if you still want an ebony Goliath. Payment plans ease the pain

[xenophobe]

I'll probably get one on the used market, I have way too much I need to sell first. But thanks, I didn't know they were reopening 4A... at least not for the ebony top.

[VitaminG]

yea, they've just reopened it now for all 4A options - red/gold chameleon, ebony, blue copper graphic. Run 4 will be open for a week or until 150 guitars are sold.

[Jack Napalm]

That looks pretty damn cool. Can you explain to me the fan frets, I am clueless? Seems like it would be hard to do chords.

[VitaminG]

At its most basic, the high & low strings have different scale lengths - like on a piano or harp - so you get the benefits of the longer scale & higher string tension of a baritone guitar on the bass strings & normal guitar scale on the treble strings. It's like a 27.5" guitar on the low E & the old familiar 25.5" on the high. I believe his 8 string gets to around 28.2" on the low E. The frets still have to obey the fundamental rules for placement (ie. the math to determine where for a given scale each fret goes) so all of the frets immediately under the low E would be in the same spot as on a standard 27.5" baritone. The frets fan because they're angling between the correct placement for each of these scales. Because of the angled bridge/nut, this all works out mathematically for all of the other strings too.

Apart from the tonal advantages, particularly on the lower strings, the angle of the frets kind of fan with the natural splay of your fingers. If you hold your fretting hand in a playing position with your fingers pointing straight up and then move your hand away from your body as though you were moving down the neck, your fingers start to lean away from you. Conversely as you bring them towards your body, the fingers angle back towards you. Perry has decided that the 9th fret is where your fingers should be pointing straight across the fretboard, so that where he places the perpendicular fret. The rest of the frets fan out from this point & that will also determine the angles of the bridge & nut. Other manufacturers might use a different fret as their perpendicular fret, changing their bridge & nut angles accordingly. There's no hard & fast rule.

I imagine if you were playing some stretchy jazz chords on the first few frets it could get difficult because of the angle of the frets, but also because of the 27.5" scale on the low E string. But for the stuff I play, I haven't had any trouble playing chords. I've actually found chords above the 12th fret easier than on a regular guitar.

Anyway, Perry does a much better job of explaining the concept:

https://www.ormsbyguitars.com/what-is-a-multiscale.html

[Jack Napalm]

Very cool. Thank you.

[toejam]

Congrats, Gary! Love that color and the pickguard.

[Venomboy]

I played fanned frets for the first time at NAMM this year on Carvin and Ormsby guitars.

It doesn't take long to get used to them.

[euronymous]

Big fan of the color hngd

[Number Of The Priest]

Nice! I look forward to the day when I can try my first multiscale guitar.

I can't wait for a Floyd to be invented for multiscale guitars.

[Hellbat]

Nice one Gary. Now you have to save up for one made by Perry himself.

[VitaminG]

thanks all. I'm really pleased with it. Perry should be very happy with the quality is guitars.

Nice one Gary. Now you have to save up for one made by Perry himself.

HA! That has been on my mind.