NAME: Sophie Burrell, Saints Of Sin
MAIN GUITAR: Ormsby SX
OTHER GEAR: EVH 5150iii, MXR/BOSS/TC Electronic
SOCIAL LINKS:
https://instagram.com/sophieburrell1
https://www.facebook.com/Sophie.Burrell.Music/
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqj9P9PYqcK2o8jtKAQlcEQ
https://mobile.twitter.com/sophieburrell

WHAT'S YOUR FAVOURITE RIFF YOU'VE WRITTEN?
If it counts, the solo I wrote for my band’s new single, Heart Attack!
WHAT'S A RIFF YOU WISH YOU'D WRITTEN?
I wish I’d written the main riff in Hold The Line by Toto. It’s nothing spectacular but it’s straight up badass and you know it means business!
WHAT’S THE BEST GUITAR ADVICE YOU HAVE EVER RECEIVED, AND WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE SOMEONE ELSE?
I would say that the best advice I received was to never give up, even when things got really difficult ...and instead of being intimidated by those better than you, be motivated to get to their level.
Some advice I would give would be to stay dedicated, no matter what. Guitar is something that will take years of hard work and time before it starts to really pay off, it’s so worth it! If practicing guitar feels like a chore, you’re doing it wrong.
WHAT’S AN UNDERRATED ALBUM THAT EVERYONE SHOULD CHECK OUT?
Check out any album by Richie Kotzen! I don’t have a favourite album so just check out his work! I rate him so highly as a musician and guitar player, incredible human.
DESCRIBE YOUR GUITAR SOUND IN WHATEVER TERMS YOU LIKE.
TIGHT MIDDDDDSSSS!
WHAT WOULD YOUR DREAM ORMSBY CUSTOM BE LIKE?
Oooh, in my mind it would have a beautiful quilt top, quite classic and natural looking, 24 frets, 6 strings. A thin Flame Maple neck, Rosewood fretboard. A pretty thin body, nice and lightweight for a 5ft person hahaha. All round elegant looking!

Check out this guitar play-through video by Ormsby artist Ice!

Our good buddy Rusty Cooley has a lot going on at the moment. In addition to his forthcoming Ormsby GTR Series signature model, which we'll announce very very soon, he's also on the lookout for a drummer for his band Day Of Reckoning, and Rusty has opened up a few guitar-teaching slots. So if you want to learn from one of the best in the biz, you know what to do!

Rusty has also just done an interview with Thriving Rockstar which covers a wide range of topics including health and fitness plus, of course, guitar stuff. Read the summary here and check out the full interview below.

Thanks to our friends at Gear Gods for checking out the Rusty Cooley RC-One prototype at NAMM! In this video, Rusty takes you through the features of the guitar and Perry drops some info about when you can get your hands on one of your own!

Shout-out to the magnificent Jared Dines who named Ormsby as number two in his The 10 COOLEST Booths At NAMM 2019 video! We're in there with some exceptional company including Ernie Ball, our buds at Kiesel, Fender, Ibanez and more. 

Thanks for the love, Jared! Always a pleasure to see you. And if you don't already follow Jared on YouTube, get on it. It's the home of quality content such as, well...

Run 7 SX GTR Shark Limited Edition guitars are currently in assembly. These guitars feature Mahogany bodies with Flame Maple veneers, Hammerhead Shark sound-holes and Shark inlays, in Bloodbath and Ocean Dream finishes. Check out the in-progress shots in the gallery below!

​These guitars are expected at Ormsby HQ in Western Australia not long before we leave for the NAMM Show (Booth 2841 if you'll be there and would like to say hello!), and Jett and Magnus are staying behind to keep on top of QC before these ship out. 

We can't wait to get these guitars into your hands. If you have any general questions, the best way to get them answered quickly is to post them on our Facebook wall. 

​Run 6 HypeGTR Multiscale guitars have arrived and are being set up and shipped right now (December 13). Some dealers already have theirs so there are plenty out there in the wild already. These guitars have single-piece Swamp Ash bodies and Flame Maple veneer tops, and are available in Dahlia Black, Natural, Purr Pull, Beto Blue and Sophia Blue finishes in 6, 7 and 8-string variants, with Nunchucker A8 bridge and De La Creme neck humbuckers. The 8-strings came with cases, but our shipment of cases for Run 6 was a little behind so we’re using spare cases that we ordered with Run 5 for 6 and 7-string guitars and sending out about 30 guitars a day. We also have Run 5 guitars in stock that we can steal cases from until our Run 6 case allocation arrives on December 30. This shouldn’t affect any preorders at all but you may wait a little longer if you buy a spare. 

If you want to purchase a guitar direct from us to be delivered before Christmas, the cut off dates are:
Aussies: Noon on Monday 17th
International: Tuesday 18th
Visit our Reverb.com store to see available stock. 

The HypeGTR Floyd Richie Allan Signature models which are also a part of Run 6 are coming soon: these were placed at the end of the production run for logistics purposes related to the standard scale, the Floyd Rose routing and the extra work scalloping the last four frets (there's also a Multiscale 8-string version with a fixed bridge landing at the same time). They’ll be worth the wait though: these guitars have chambered Swamp Ash bodies with a Platinum Pearl White finish that has to be seen to be believed, offset with white binding with red pickups (Nunchucker A8 and Old School A2) and red fretboard dots. We’ll update this post when we have an exact delivery date from the factory, and we’ll be sure to post all about it on our social media too. 

Here are the Run 6 colours on the day they arrived at Ormsby HQ: each of these finishes is available on 6, 7 and 8-string versions.

​It’s easy to see pickups as simply a magnet with a bunch of wire wrapped around it. That’s a pretty simple way of describing a very complex piece of equipment though; every element of the pickup has an affect on the ultimate sound, and the magnets in particular are a whole world unto themselves. The size and type of magnet you use in your pickup has a big influence on the sound that the pickup produces, as does the type of wire: how thick it is, how it’s insulated, how it’s wound around the bobbins, how many turns of wire. And different pole piece materials can also affect the pickup’s magnetic field in different ways. {You can see more about Ormsby pickup types here).

Let’s get to know pickup magnets better. We’ll start with Alnico, magnets an alloy made of iron, aluminium (Al), nickel (Ni) and cobalt (Co), as well as a little bit of copper (Cu). The three most common used Alnico variants are Alnico II, Alnico III and Alnico V, although Alnico VIII is growing in popularity, blending the power of a ceramic magnet with the fatness and detail of an Alnico. Here are the basic types:

Alnico II
Alnico II is commonly found in original PAF humbucking pickups, with a moderate coil wind, but it’s also a great hard rock humbucker when combined with hotter coils. The tone is relatively soft, clear and sweet with a rounding-off of the treble frequencies, but if you use a hotter coil wind it brings out a little bit of hairiness and great note separation in complex chords. We recommend Alnico II for our Old School humbucking model, and it’s ideal for the neck version of the De La Creme. You’ll also find it in the PVH (Perry’s Vintage Humbucker) model. 

Alnico V
Alnico V is the most common magnet when we think of rock pickups. The sound is usually hotter, edgier and ruder than Alnico II and III, and you’ll find that an Alnico V pickup will give you a great ‘wall of sound’ vibe where the individual notes of a chord blend together into a big slab of rock. They’re also a little warmer in the midrange which can make for great lead guitar tones. This is the perfect magnet for the De La Creme bridge model. 

Alnico VIII
Alnico VIII is a big deal at Ormsby, powering many of our most popular pickups. It’s one of the least common magnet types elsewhere, but for us it offers the perfect blend of grit and precision; it sounds great in pickups like the Hot Rock and Nunchucker, situations where you really want some chunk and aggression like a ceramic pickup but also a little bit more warmth on lead tones like an Alnico V. 

Ceramic
Ceramic magnets usually sound more ‘modern,’ with a tighter low end, more ‘cut’ and higher output compared to Alnico magnets. They’re great for metal and shred, and they contribute a huge amount to the aggression of the Master Blaster and Katana models. 

Alnico III
Deceptively, Alnico III is weaker than Alnico II. It actually has no cobalt and the lowest magnetic pull. That makes it a great choice for neck pickups because it allows the string to ring out more cleanly. Its sound is a little more ‘confident’ compared to Alnico II, although both have a certain ‘softness.’ Many players like to balance an Alnico III neck pickup against an Alnico II in the bridge. Ormsby doesn’t currently offer Alnico III magnets as standard but you never know what we can do in the Custom Shop.

Ormsby artist Ando San Washington's band Incipience is about to hit the studio to record their new EP Vehement and they need your help! A Kickstarter campaign is underway to fund the project, which will be recorded at Robot Buffalo Studios at the start of December! Nick Morzov will be producing (he's also working with Chon and Animals As Leaders on their new records), and this one will feature live drums, so we're sure it's going to sound huge. 

"This is going to be a very exciting for release for us and that the music will speak for itself," Ando says. "And we as a band really appreciate anybody that donates to our Kickstarter and we promise to put out awesome music for our fans and progressive metal fans."

If you'd like to get involved - and you should! - click here.