Hudson Broadcast AP Ariel Posen Signature Preamp Overdrive

I’ve been very excited to collaborate with Ariel Posen to produce the Broadcast-AP. It’s an evolution of the Broadcast, designed to integrate with Ariel’s unique sound. At the heart of the Broadcast-AP – as the name may suggest – is the same circuitry as the Broadcast. A class-A discrete, transformer-coupled circuit, designed to saturate in a unique way reminiscent of certain recording and broadcast consoles.

We took the low-gain side of the standard Broadcast as the starting point. Together, Ariel and I exchanged the Germanium transistor for a Silicon and used an OEP transformer – the OEP transformer saturates and distorts less below 100Hz compared to the Triad transformer used in the standard Broadcast. These two changes together give the Broadcast-AP a darker, smoother, more powerful tone compared to the standard version. Greater weight in the lows, whilst retaining the open highs and upper-mids, giving the Broadcast a ‘3D’ effect.

The control layout features both LEVEL and GAIN TRIM potentiometers and a switchable high-pass / low-cut filter – 100Hz @ 6dB/oct. The GAIN TRIM control has 12dB more gain than the low-gain side of standard Broadcast, allowing the Broadcast-AP to cover ground from clean boost through to medium gain overdrive tones. In addition, the gain of the pedal can be increased via an internal trimmer and – when pushed to the max – the sound becomes overloaded, broken and fuzzy. The high-pass / low-cut filter can help keep the low end together, especially when driving amps at higher gain and volume levels.

• Pair of selected Silicon transistors
• OEP Transformer selected to give less THD on low frequencies
• BI Technologies potentiometers
• Lumberg jack sockets (rated for >5000 cycles)
• Heavy duty Alpha foot switches (rated for >30,000 cycles)
• Individually hand-built on to a high-quality PCB, assembled, hand-wired, tested and packaged all by Michael Hudson