Sunday, July 26, 2020

HUDSON ELECTRONICS: Dual Broadcast, Point to Point Layout

I quite liked the single Hudson Electronics Broadcast; the Dual is just that little bit more practical.  It can run from clean through to downright nasty tones.   The low-cut is really great too.

You will need to build a 24v charge pump for this or run the entire thing at 9V - which does work, albeit with a slightly different tone.  Anything in-between also works - 12V and 18V are also OK if you have either option on your power supply.

If you want to build this as the original Hudson Broadcast, just remove the second volume control and adjust the switching to suit (I'm sure you can work it out).  If you have taken one look at this and thought, nah, might stick to vero, there are some great layouts on Guitar FX Layouts, including the original layout used by Hudson, which also includes transistor voltages from an original unit.  The original used a larger vero board, so it will be a bit cramped on standard .1 pitch vero.

HUDSON ELECTRONICS DUAL BROADCAST - POINT TO POINT LAYOUT

HUDSON ELECTRONICS DUAL BROADCAST - POINT TO POINT LAYOUT



HUDSON ELECTRONICS DUAL BROADCAST - WORK IN PROGRESS

It's passing signal, just need to do some further testing with the guitar before adding the transformer etc, and making sure I'm happy with Q2 (currently an OC45).



Then I got bored and decided to start fresh and rework things....   it now has external pots instead of trimmers, and I made some minor tweaks to the layout.  For some reason, I also thought it would be a good idea to twist wires together to give it more of a vintage look.   

I have stuck with an OC45 as Q2.  I tested a few different options, it didn't really like anything high gain, and while the Soviets were pretty good, they were just missing something compared to the OC45.  I can see why they use them in production units, as they're cheap and readily available, unlike OC45s or equally hard-to-come-by parts.   



HUDSON ELECTRONICS DUAL BROADCAST



As you can see, I'm not one who does incredibly neat internal wiring.  I've seen worse, but it's not going on Instagram is it.  




HUDSON ELECTRONICS DUAL BROADCAST - MODS

Transformer

The transformer is not essential by the way.  If you wanted to, you could quite easily change the entire configuration coming off the emitter of Q2 to something a little more normal without substantially altering the tone and feel of the pedal (the 100uf running into the 15k / 33k resistor and the transformer).  Being a point-to-point layout, there are plenty of opportunities for experimentation available.

Note:  If you use a different isolation transformer, you may need to adjust the 15k / 33k resistors before the transformer.  The resistors and one-half of the transformer form a RL high pass filter - I had this issue and could not for the life of me work out what was happening until someone more experienced than I pointed this out.  I couldn't work out why I had a full range signal coming from Q2 and the coupling cap, but it disappeared at the transformer.  

Trimmers

Take one or both of the internal trimmers and make them external pots.  While the extra knobs are a little annoying, I like the added functionality.  

NOTE:  One trimmer sets the overall gain of the pedal (bottom left), and the other trimmer sets the boost level.  So if they are both cranked, there will not be much boost.   Set the low-gain first, then adjust the boost.  Adjusting the low-gain, will also change the other channel.  

Single channel

If you're never going to use both channels, why not make it a single and save a switch.  If you're feeling really minimal, the Broadcast could quite happily be trimmed down into a two-knob beast.  Just the High setting and no lo-cut.  

Tone controls

A treble pot could be added to the output stage, if you really wanted to go nuts with extra knobs.  As there's already a lo-cut control, a simple low-pass filter would do the job nicely.  It's mostly not needed, but on some settings the tops could be tamed a little.   I tried this, and it worked pretty well.  I can't remember what values I used; it was quite mild, I remember that much.  

While I like the lo-cut, to remove it, just join the two points that connect to the pot.  

Transistor

I've listed an OC71 as that was on the schematic, but I have seen photos of this with a Soviet MN20.  Make sure it's a low-gain PNP germanium transistor, and you will be close.  I'd recommend testing a few if you have that option.

2 comments:

  1. I love the broadcast, have the dual version. I'd like to be able to control bass cut levels for each side independently-- I like it leaner on the higher gain side. Any advice on how? Good soldering skills here but not much schematic knowledge. Thanks

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