Why You Need To Know Hudson Electronics

Get ready, because I'm about to give you a crash course on Hudson Electronics from the UK.

That's it. That’s the article.

Let’s take this back to the beginning. About 15 years ago in North England, a guy named Michael Hudson was in a band and, much like me, he loved pedals. Also like me, he then became obsessed with pedals, started trying to build his own, built some Tonebenders, built some Fuzz Faces, and then he created his own unique circuits.

That was about 10 years ago. Now Hudson Electronics is a very well known pedal company and, honestly, one of my favorites.** One of the very first things that drew me to Michael and his company was the beautiful aesthetics of the pedals. Hudson Electronics has managed to create something truly unique in the pedal market, and that’s not easy to do.

**Yes, I have about five hundred favorite pedal companies. No, I will not pick just one.

Honestly, the entire brand is fantastic, but I want to zero in on three pedals where Hudson really pushed the limits of fan-flipping-tastic pedal aesthetics.

The Broadcast

The Broadcast is hands down his most popular pedal. This is what started it all, and it's the first pedal that I ever saw or played of his. Now, when it came out, people immediately asked, “How does the Broadcast compare to the Color Box?” Comparing the two was the sonic equivalent of comparing Gala and Fuji apples; they are both apples, but if you know your apples, the difference is night and day. You saw it on forums, Instagram, Facebook, even some pretty ambitious skywriting.

Here’s why this is so cool to me: here I am, an American, basing my preamp distortion pedal off of a British Neve sound and here he is, a British guy, basing his off of an American sound. That’s the exact opposite of a vicious cycle.

In my JHS show episode that dropped earlier today, we did a pretty killer jam with this pedal. I can only describe it as Jay Z meets Limp Bizkit meets Rage Against the Machine. I put the Broadcast into the board as a dirty direct in grinding distortion sound. We played the 24-volt version of the Broadcast, which runs it with more high head room, constantly turning your 9 volts into 24. Do yourself a favor. Look up the episode, and follow along our jam session with your most epic air guitar skills. If you have time, go ahead and re-watch Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure while you’re at it.

You feel better, right? Of course you do.

Side note: this pedal is absolutely perfect for bass.

Sidecar

Next up is the Sidecar germanium clipping overdrive. This is an incredibly unique overdrive pedal for this day and age, or really for any time in history. Here, Hudson has taken the classic Tube Screamer circuit that many of us know and love, and he has integrated in a British style console two-band EQ.

I’m going to give you a minute to get back up off the floor, just in case that literally knocked your socks off.

With the Broadcast, Hudson used the American console kind of sound, but he didn't do the same thing here. He stayed home with the British sound and he went with a Neve sidecar, a treble and bass control, and he put it in a Tube Screamer. That's bananas.

You have germanium clipping in the diode clipping section, which is super unique. I love it. The pedal offers low to medium gain. It has this very interesting clipping sound, and almost like this nice artifact thing that goes on in the harmonics. It's fantastic. And just do yourself a favor and do a google image search on this pedal, because you have to appreciate how good this pedal looks. To quote Dusty from Twister, “It’s the wonder of nature, baby.”

Broadcast Dual Pedal

Last but not least is the Broadcast Dual Pedal. It's essentially the single Broadcast pedal, but revamped as a footswitch. So, when you use both pedals together, it gives you a dual-channel solution to switch between the low gain and the high gain setting of the original broadcast. Inside are some trim pots, which let you fine-tune and adjust things, but you also have the low cut, the gain trim, and then you have a level for each footswitch. It's fantastic.

I just want to say that all these pedals also run at 24 volts. You can put 9, 12, 18, or 24. In the video, we're only running them at 9. I can't even imagine what would have happened in the JHS show episode at 24 volts. Maybe a mushroom cloud of awesomeness? A smoking crater with a Broadcast Dual Pedal at its center? Try it and let us know.

Hudson Electronics is a quality company and his pedals are phenomenal. Go buy them. Support what he's doing. Hudson is a really creative and important builder in the pedal community. If you’ve got anything left from that stimulus check, this is a great investment to make.