For her new record Echo The Diamond, Margaret Glaspy worked with bassist Chris Morrissey and drummer Dave King to create an indie-rock record bursting with spontaneity and unrehearsed grit.
“It was exciting to say that we could put these three people in a room and play music, and it would be record-worthy,” says guitarist and singer-songwriter Margaret Glaspy about the trio of musicians, herself included, that created her latest release, Echo the Diamond, a collection of brash, rootsy indie, rock ’n’ roll, and alt-country sounds. The record’s rhythm section comprises established jazz musicians Chris Morrissey (Ben Kweller, Mark Guiliana, and many others) on bass and Dave King (The Bad Plus) on drums. They added an element of spontaneity to the music and acted as a safety net, allowing Glaspy to take some calculated risks.
Margaret Glaspy - Irish Goodbye (Official Audio)
The trio didn’t rehearse much before the album’s recording sessions, aiming to let the magic happen in the moment. Some cuts were from the first take; “Female Brain,” with its raucous, F-to-E-minor progression strummed heavily through a crumbling, past-the-point-of-breakup, low-wattage amp, was actually from a rehearsal take. The process was a gamble, but Glaspy got what she wanted. Echo the Diamond is edgy and raw—at times, it feels like the whole thing could fall apart, but it never does. The album’s naturally overdriven, crunchy guitars, plus the omission of overdubs, synths, and harmony vocals, contrast Glaspy’s previous release, the polished and poppy Devotion.
“Echo the Diamond isn’t necessarily like a super manicured record,” says Glaspy. “It was super intentional to keep it kind of wild and wooly. I think this record is definitely flying a flag for live music, and for making records that feel like live music.”
Glaspy tailors her music for the live experience, writing songs with the intention that they can be performed solo with nothing lost in translation.“I think it’s just naturally how I think about song structure. When I was young, I would open for everybody, and I needed to be able to command an audience by myself,” says Glaspy. “You have to write and arrange songs in a way that was going to be able to keep people’s attention from start to finish without a band.”
Glaspy first came up with her new album’s title as a suggestion for one of Lage’s recordings. When he didn’t use it, she saved it for herself. “It meant, for me, to shine bright: echo the diamond, be like the diamond,” she says.
This approach is at the core of Glaspy’s guitar style: Her goal is to be able to play “everything all at the same time so it’s not missing anything just because it’s a solo performance,” explains Glaspy. “Whether I actually can do that or not is a different question [laughs]. But that’s often what I strive for: to try and have it be kind of a closed loop.”
Glaspy’s self-contained parts are rhythmically interesting, at times mixing in lead lines. On “Memories”—a deeply personal song about loss that was so difficult to sing, Glaspy used the only take she was able to get through—she plays a melodic, low-register solo with chordal accompaniment on the same guitar. Another track, “Irish Goodbye,” features contrasting parts with intricate bass figures, riffs, and chords.
Glaspy’s partner, jazz guitar icon Julian Lage, co-produced Echo the Diamond, whose title came from a phrase that Glaspy suggested when Lage was looking for a song title for his own record. Glaspy recalls, “I said, ‘What about ‘Echo the Diamond?’ And he didn’t like it. But I loved it, and it stuck with me ever since, and then it felt really fitting for this record. It meant, for me, to shine bright: echo the diamond, be like the diamond. And there was a Bruce Lee quote that I’ve referenced before, that really inspired me, where he said to ‘be water.’ If water is poured into this glass, it takes the shape of this glass, and water gets poured into a kettle, it takes the shape of the kettle. For me, that was a really transformative thing to metabolize and understand. That flexibility is strength in a certain way.”
Echo the Diamond was recorded at Reservoir Studios in New York City, and throughout the process, Lage acted like Glaspy’s third eye. When he felt like he was seeing something that she wasn’t seeing, he didn’t hesitate to bring it up. “When he has input about something, and says, ‘That was the take,’ I take him seriously, because he has a good track record for understanding when I’m capturing something that I would want in the big picture,” explains Glaspy. “He’s a really good compass and has a really good radar for when things are happening in the way that I need them to happen.”
After years spent as a solo opening act, Margaret Glaspy learned to write captivating guitar parts that she could reproduce live on her own.
Photo by Ebru Yildiz
“I think sometimes for me, the point is to be able to show up to the show and see what happens. And whether that’s a good idea or not is a different thing—it’s how I’ve operated most of my life.”
Since both of them are extremely busy, well-established musicians (“Our lives are music, so there’s no separation,” says Glaspy), they have to be mindful of boundaries when engaging each other for musical advice. But in general, they have an open-door policy with one another. “There’s an understanding both ways that if you’re asking me something right now, it’s because it's urgent, and so, ask me,” says Glaspy. “Sometimes you’ll ask too many questions, and [the other person will] go, ‘You’re asking me too many questions.’ In general, our lifestyle is very focused on making projects like that work. Those are our babies, Julian and I. I feel like there’s some part of our records that feels like they’re slightly part of our family.”
Glaspy’s intense musical environment isn’t much different than the one she grew up in. Music was the center of her household—everyone in her family played guitar and listened avidly to music. Her dad played jazz around the house, which led her to impersonate Louis Armstrong as a youth; her mom was into rock bands and singer-songwriters like James Taylor and Joni Mitchell. Her sister and brother brought ’90s rock influences like Pearl Jam, Deftones, and Alanis Morissette into the house, but Glaspy herself initially took to the music of Michael Jackson and Elliot Smith. She played fiddle until she was 16, when she started getting into guitar and songwriting.
Margaret Glaspy's Gear
Glaspy’s partner, jazz guitarist Julian Lage, helped co-produce Echo the Diamond. Glaspy says their songs are like kin: “I feel like there’s some part of our records that feels like they're slightly part of our family.”
Photo by Debi Del Grande
Guitars
- 1978 Fender Telecaster Deluxe
- Danocaster T-style
- Waterloo WL-14
Amps
- Magic Amplification Vibro Prince
Effects
- Strymon Flint
- Pete Cornish Duplex pedal (CC-1TM and OC-1 TM)
- Boss TU-3
Strings & Picks
- D’Addario (.011 sets)
- D’Addario heavy pick
After high school, Glaspy won a grant from the YoungArts Foundation in 2007 in the popular voice category, and she used the money to enroll at Berklee College of Music in Boston. Coming from Red Bluff, a small town in Northern California where she was one of only a few aspiring professional musicians, the move came with immediate culture shock. “I think the biggest education I got from Berklee was really just being around that many musicians at one time,” says Glaspy. “To be in that environment was kind of bizarre at first. You kind of get your mind blown by being around that many musicians, and then over time, it just makes you work harder and harder because the bar just starts to rise higher and higher.”
Her grant money was exhausted after one semester, but Glaspy remained a fixture on the Berklee campus, sneaking into classes and attending master classes. She lived in Boston for a total of three years, using her time to develop her live act at places like Club Passim, an iconic Cambridge venue where the likes of Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan performed. “I hustled really hard,” says Glaspy. “I would play around Boston on a weekly basis and get gigs wherever I could. When I lived in Boston, I would have gigs in New York occasionally. So I would take the $10 bus at like 4 iin the morning to get to New York, spend the whole day there, play a show, and then sometimes take the bus back at 4 in the morning or whatever. By the time I got to New York, I kind of understood what it meant to have to hustle and so I just kept doing that in New York. I would work jobs while I was here during that time, and I would just try and get as many residencies, as many gigs, as I possibly could. And then it was just like rinse and repeat constantly.”
Echo the Diamond also marks a big change in Glaspy’s gear setup. For years, Glaspy’s go-to instrument was Lage’s Danocaster T-style guitar, which she had played on her previous records. But as studio time got closer, she wanted something that felt just a little bit darker and could sustain in a different way. “The Danocaster is incredible, and it’s still on the record, too. But I was feeling like, ‘Am I going to get a Les Paul?’ Like something that just feels heavy,” recalls Glaspy. Fate intervened when she went to get a repair done at TR Crandall, a New York City guitar shop where she worked back in the day, and where luminaries like Nels Cline and Bill Frisell hang.
“I got a CBS-era ’78 Tele Deluxe at TR Crandall like a week before I made the record,” says Glaspy. “It was really last minute. I was like, ‘If I run into something, maybe I’ll get it.’ Then Alex Whitman at TR Crandall recommended this Tele Deluxe. It wasn’t even on my radar to think about a Tele Deluxe, but I fell in love with it pretty instantly.”
The Tele Deluxe behaves a little differently than Glaspy’s other instruments, and this characteristic brought about a welcome surprise. “The one thing about that guitar that is interesting is I find that in order for me to get what I need out of it, I have to crank the amp,” says Glaspy. “So I really have so much fun playing that guitar when it’s very loud.”
“I think this record is definitely flying a flag for live music, and for making records that feel like live music.”
The new axe’s unique idiosyncrasies deepened Glaspy’s dynamic approach. “It’s influenced my right hand quite a bit where I’m kind of relearning to play the guitar in a way, because if I overplay and I’m digging in too hard, and the amp is very loud, I feel like it has diminishing returns,” she explains. “So I learned to have a slightly lighter touch on my right hand with the amp loud. It’s kind of been a little bit of a reworking for me.”
Glaspy also used a Magic Amps Vibro Prince—amp builder Mike Moody’s take on a Princeton—on Echo the Diamond. Her sound relies heavily on the interaction between her fingers and the amp, and her recent move to a house in New Jersey after years of living in Brooklyn has allowed her to more easily explore this connection. “[In New York] you’re needing to go to practice spaces and things like that,” says Glaspy. “Now, our whole basement is a practice space, which is great. I think that when you start to understand your own relativity to an amp, you start to understand that, ‘Okay, I know what this sounds like at a low volume, and I can play it at a low volume. And I understand what it sounds like loud. So when I get to the venue and play the gig, I can anticipate what I’m going to need at a louder volume.’ But I wasn’t always able to practice in that way. Okay, honestly, I’m not a practicer. I don’t practice a whole lot [laughs].”
Despite living in the world of jazz, where players are known to practice religiously, Glaspy says her only rehearsals come in the writing and arranging of her songs. “For me, the point is to be able to show up to the show and see what happens,” she says.
Photo by Ebru Yildiz
That last comment might come as a surprise. But Glaspy’s not one to sit around and shed arpeggios all day with a metronome. She adds, “In terms of saying like, ‘I’m going to practice scales. I’m going to practice technique. I’m going to put in my hours.’ I don’t do that at all.”
But that doesn’t mean she isn’t spending tons of quality time honing her craft. “There is some element of practice, for sure,” says Glaspy. “But most of it’s done in the writing phase and I’m not really practicing a whole lot after that. So, if I’m making a song, by the time the song is actually done, I played that part so many times in order to do that, and now it’s just in my hands. I think sometimes for me, the point is to be able to show up to the show and see what happens. And whether that’s a good idea or not is a different thing—it’s how I’ve operated most of my life.”
Margaret Glaspy - Act Natural (Live In Philadelphia)
A grunge influence crept into Glapsy’s style while she made Echo the Diamond, with bass-register riffs dominating on songs like opener “Act Natural.”
- Tonal Calculus: Margaret Glaspy ›
- Rig Rundown: Margaret Glaspy ›
- Julian Lage: “What Are You Transmitting?” ›
Vox’s Valvenergy Tone Sculptor
I spent a day workshopping ideas in my studio using just the Vox Valvenergy Smooth Impact compressor and Tone Sculptor EQ, and a dash of amp tremolo and reverb to taste. In the process, I produced more arresting sounds than I had heard from my guitars in many days. There were radical direct-to-desk-style Jimmy Page/Beatles distortion tones, sun-sized, cosmic electric 12-string, Bakersfield twang that could burn through crude, and many other sweet and nasty colors. Most decent EQ and compressor combinations can achieve variations on all those themes. But the Smooth Impact and Tone Sculptor also reveal interesting personalities in unexpected places.
The individuality and energy in the Vox Valvenergy pedals is attributable, in part, to the Nutube vacuum tube used in the circuit. Though it looks little like a vacuum tube as most guitarists know them, the thin, wafer-like Nutube is, in fact, a real vacuum tube like those used in fluorescent displays. Fluorescent display tubes have limitations. A maximum operating voltage of around 40 volts means they aren’t useful for bigger power tube applications like a 6L6, which has an operating voltage of about 400 volts. But it can work quite well as a preamp tube in concert with an op amp power section, which is how the Nutube is used in the new Valvenergy pedals, as well as older Vox products like the Vox MV50 and Superbeetle amps.
Valvenergy Tone Sculptor
When you think about “cinematic” effects, you likely imagine big reverb or modulation sounds that create a vivid picture and feeling of space or motion. But narrow, hyper-focused EQ profiles can evoke very different and equally powerful images. Radical EQ settings can add aggression, claustrophobic intimacy, and stark, explosive dark-and-light contrasts more evocative of Hitchcock’s Psycho than Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner.
Any of these moods can be summoned from the Valvenergy Tone Sculptor. Six sliders cut or boost 10 dB frequency bands spanning 100 Hz to 5.6 kHz. A seventh slider cuts or boosts the master output by 12 dB. This platter of options might not sound like much. But you can use these seven controls together to very specific ends.
“Radical EQ settings can add aggression, near-claustrophobic intimacy, and stark, explosive dark-and-light contrasts.”
For example, bumping the high-midrange and the master output produces narrow cocked-wah-like filter sounds with enough push to produce extra amp overdrive—effectively turning the Tone Sculptor into a buzzy, almost fuzz-like filter effect. But unlike a wah, you can carefully scoop high end or add a spoonful of bass to blunt harsh frequencies or give the tone a bit more weight. You can also broaden the palette of an amp/guitar pairing. I matched a particularly trebly Jazzmaster bridge pickup with a very hot and toppy Vox AC15-flavored amp for this test—a recipe that can be spiky on the best days. But with the Tone Sculptor in the line, I could utilize the same sharp, fuzzy, and filtered Mick Ronson wah tones while shaving some of the most piercing frequencies.
EQ pedals exist on many points along the cost spectrum. And at $219, the Tone Sculptor lives on the high side of the affordable range. Does it offer something less expensive models can’t deliver? Well, for one thing, I found it relatively quiet, which is nice whether you’re shaping toppy high-contrast effects or performing more surgical adjustments. And the sliders feel nuanced and nicely tapered rather than like a dull axe with a few basic frequency notches. But in many situations I also liked the color imparted by the circuit—generated, presumably, by the Nutube. “Color,” in audio terms, is a broad and subjective thing, and one should not necessarily expect the warm, tube-y glow of a vintage tube Pultec. Still, the Tone Sculptor has many forgiving, flattering qualities—typical of studio EQs—that enable fine tuning and experimentation with more radical and creative applications of the effect.
Valvenergy Smooth Impact
As with the Tone Sculptor, the Smooth Impact’s use of Nutube engenders certain expectations. It’s easy to surmise that because Smooth Impact has a vacuum tube in the circuit that it will behave like a little Teletronix LA-2A leveling amplifier. That’s a big ask for a $219 stompbox. On the other hand, the Smooth Impact exhibits some appealing characteristics of studio tube compression. At lower compression levels, it works well as a thickening agent—adding mass without much additional noise. And at higher compression levels it can sound snappy, crisp, and tight without feeling like you’ve bled every trace of overtone from your signal.
The Smooth Impact’s controls aren’t totally atypical. But because it lacks some familiar features like variable attack and release, yet is more complicated than a 1-knob DynaComp, you have to trust your ear to navigate interactions among the controls. The most unfamiliar of these is the 3-way vintage/natural/sag toggle. The first two are defined by preset attack and release settings: Vintage is slow attack and long release, and natural is the opposite. The sag mode’s compression is more like what you get from tube saturation, and it’s useful for adding thickness and complexity to a thin amp tone at modest compression levels.
Though the vintage and natural modes certainly have a different feel, they don’t always sound worlds apart. And like the sag mode, the thing they have in common is the way they enrich lifeless amp output at low to medium compression, with a bit of grind from the tube gain and a little extra makeup gain from the output. At the most aggressive settings, the tube gain can get a little crispy. And really crushing the compression can flatline your tone without adding much in the way of extra sustain. These are limitations common to many compressors with similar features. But unless I was chasing very ultra-snappy Prince and Nile Rodgers fast-funk caricatures, I enjoyed the Smooth Impact most in its in-between ranges, where mass, mild, harmonious drive, and low noise showcase the pedal’s sometimes studio-like personality.
Guitarist Dave Harrington concedes that while there are a few mile markers in the music that he and musician Nicolas Jaar create as Darkside, improvisation has been the rule from day one. The experimental electronic trio’s latest record, Nothing, which released in February on Matador, was the first to feature new percussionist Tlacael Esparza.
Taking the record on tour this year, Darkside stopped in at Nashville’s Brooklyn Bowl, where Harrington broke down his complex signal chains for PG’s Chris Kies.
Brought to you by D’Addario.
Express Yourself
Harrington bought this mid-2000s Gibson SG at 30th Street Guitars in New York, a shop he used to visit as a kid. The headstock had already been broken and repaired, and Harrington switched the neck pickup to a Seymour Duncan model used by Derek Trucks. Harrington runs it with D’Addario NYXL .010s, which he prefers for their stretch and stability.
The standout feature is a round knob installed by his tech behind the bridge, which operates like an expression pedal for the Line 6 DL4. Harrington has extras on hand in case one breaks.
Triple Threat
Harrington’s backline setup in Nashville included two Fender Twin Reverbs and one Fender Hot Rod DeVille. He likes the reissue Fender amps for their reliability and clean headroom. Each amp handles an individual signal, including loops that Harrington creates and plays over; with each amp handling just one signal rather than one handling all loops and live playing, there’s less loss of definition and competition for frequency space.
Dave Harrington’s Pedalboards
Harrington says he never gives up on a pedal, which could explain why he’s got so many. You’re going to have to tune in to the full Rundown to get the proper scoop on how Harrington conducts his three-section orchestra of stomps, but at his feet, he runs a board with a Chase Bliss Habit, Mu-Tron Micro-Tron IV, Eventide PitchFactor, Eventide H90, Hologram Microcosm, Hologram Chroma Console, Walrus Monument, Chase Bliss Thermae, Chase Bliss Brothers AM, JHS NOTAKLÖN, two HexeFX reVOLVERs, and an Amped Innovations JJJ Special Harmonics Extender. A Strymon Ojai provides power.
At hip-level sits a board with a ZVEX Mastotron, Electro-Harmonix Cathedral, EHX Pitch Fork, Xotic EP Booster, two EHX 45000 multi-track looping recorders, Walrus Slöer, Expedition Electronics 60 Second Deluxe, and another Hologram Microcosm. A Live Wire Solutions ABY Box and MXR DC Brick are among the utility tools on deck.
Under that board rest Harrington’s beloved Line 6 DL4—his desert-island, must-have pedal—along with a controller for the EHX 45000, Boss FV-50H volume pedal, Dunlop expression pedal, Boss RT-20, a Radial ProD2, and another MXR DC Brick.
Announced at the 2025 NAMM show, Cory Wong’s new collaboration with Ernie Ball Music Man scratched an itch—namely, the itch for a humbucker-loaded guitar that could appease Wong’s rock-and-R&B alter ego and serve as complement to his signature Fender Strat. Inspiration came from no further than a bandmate’s namesake instrument. Vulfpeck bassist Joe Dart has a line of signature model EBMM basses, one of which uses the classic StingRay bass body profile. So, when Wong went looking for something distinctive, he wondered if EBMM could create a 6-string guitar using the classic StingRay bass body and headstock profile.
Ernie Ball Music Man StingRay II ReviewErnie Ball Music Man StingRay II ReviewDouble the Fun
Wong is, by his own admission, a single-coil devotee. That’s where the core of his sound lives and it feels like home to him. However, Wong is as inspired by classic Earth, Wind & Fire tones and the pop-punk of the early ’90s as he is by Prince and the Minneapolis funk that he grew up with. The StingRay II is a guitar that can cover all those bases.
Ernie Ball has a history of designing fast-feeling, comfortable necks. And I can’t remember ever struggling to move around an EBMM fretboard. The roasted maple C-shaped neck here is slightly thicker in profile than I expected, but still very comfortable. (I must also mention that the back of the neck has a dazzling, almost holographic look to the grain that morphs in the light). By any measure, the StingRay II’s curves seemed designed for comfort and speed. Now, let’s talk about those pickups.Hot or Not?
A few years ago EBMM introduced a line of HT (heat-treated) pickups. The pickups are built with technology the company used to develop their Cobalt and M-Series strings. A fair amount of the process is shrouded in secrecy and must be taken on faith, but EBMM says treating elements of the pickup with heat increases clarity and dynamic response.
To find out for myself, I plugged the StingRay II into a Fender Vibroverb, Mesa/Boogie Mark VII, and a Neural DSP Quad Cortex (Wong’s preferred live rig). Right away, it was easy to hear the tight low end and warm highs. Often, I feel like the low end from neck humbuckers can feel too loose or lack definition. Neither was the case here. The HT pickup is beautifully balanced with a bounce that’s rich with ES-335 vibes. Clean tones are punchy and bright—especially with the Vibroverb—and dirty tones have more room for air. Individual notes were clear and articulate, too.
Any guitar associated with Wong needs a strong middle-position or combined pickup tone, and the StingRay II delivers. I never felt any significant signal loss in the blended signal from the two humbuckers, even if I could use a bit more midrange presence in the voicing. The midrange gap is nothing an EQ or Tube Screamer couldn’t fix, though. And not surprisingly, very Strat-like sounds were easy to achieve for having less midrange bump.
Knowing Wong’s love for ’90s alt-rock, I expected the bridge pickup to have real bite, and it does, demonstrating exceptional dynamic range and exceptional high-end response that never approached shrill. Nearly every type of distortion and overdrive I threw at it sounded great, but especially anything with a scooped-mid flavor and plenty of low end.
The Verdict
By any measure, the StingRay II is a top-notch, professional instrument. The fit and finish are immaculate and the feel of the neck makes me wonder if EBMM stashes some kind of secret sandpaper, because I don’t think I’ve ever felt a smoother, more playable neck. Kudos are also due to EBMM and Wong for finding an instrument that can move between ’70s George Benson tones and the hammering power chords of ’90s Blink-182. Admittedly, the nearly $3K price could give some players pause, but considering the overall quality of the instrument, it’s not out of line. Wong’s involvement and search for distinct sounds makes the StingRay II more than a tired redux of a classic model—an admirable accomplishment considering EBMM’s long and storied history.
Ernie Ball Music Man StingRay II Cory Wong Signature Electric Guitar - Charcoal Blue with Rosewood Fingerboard
