NPD: Hudson Motorcycle

Dodge

I didn't order one from first run of these, but Joe at the excellent Joe's Pedals emailed me saying he'd received a few more and he'd kept one aside for me as I'd previously expressed interest.  When I first saw these and read the description I was underwhelmed to say the least.  It sounded like a tweaked Sidecar, and the Sidecar is pretty perfect as it is.

Anyway, I felt a bit guilty he'd kept one aside for me so I ordered it anyway thinking the limited availabililty would minimise any financial losses if I didn't like it.  Anyway, it arrived yesterday evening.

So, a Sidecar it is not.  Nothing like it in fact.  The Sidecar is unashamedly an overdrive pedal in the classic sense and the 2 band console EQ is powerful enough to do the mid-boosted TS thing as well as scooping the mids for a different flavour.  It's warm and fuzzy, soft germanium clipping and I bloody love it.  More than the Broadcast in fact,

The Motorcycle is more of a distortion pedal.  The bass is deeper with less mids than the Sidecar.  It's harder and more aggressive with more gain, but it remains together as the gain is added, rather than collapse into the warm fuzzy thing the Sidecar does.  There's a transformer somewhere in the circuit which is supposed to add more saturation.  It's almost part way between Sidecar and Broadcast, more distortion that the Sidecar, but more conventional that the Broadcast.

I love the Sidecar, it does everything I want from an overdrive and more.  Boosting it with the low-gain side on the Broadcast works well too.  I also really like the Broadcast, it doesn't really like a clean amp but it's so much fun into something already overdriving.  

But the Motorcycle might just be the best of them all.

mburekenge

Awesome!

benmurray85

I love the all Hudson bottom row. Very classy 

Majorscale

I also own a Sidecar and Motorcycle (both in green sparkle) and agree with all you’ve said, the Motorcycle is a bit special. Don’t forget to experiment with different voltages too… it can safely take anything between 9v and 24v.

Kittyfrisk

New Hudson? Pah!
 Thought I'd see a nice vintage bike...

Timeline88

I'm a big fan of the Broadcast and I recently, perhaps foolishly sold my Sidecar in a moment of haste. Sounds as though the Motorcycle might have been more of what I was after than the Sidecar from your review... Time to email Joe!

Are you running Broadcast > Sidecar > Motorcycle as gain stages? I'm wondering about a Broadcast > Motorcycle > JAM Rattler

Anyway, thanks for the post!

Dodge

Timeline88 said:

Are you running Broadcast > Sidecar > Motorcycle as gain stages? I'm wondering about a Broadcast > Motorcycle > JAM Rattler

Anyway, thanks for the post!

At the moment, yes.  I like the Broadcast boosting the Sidecar with the low gain side.  The Motorcycle has replaced a Rat-esque distortion, but I tended to use that on its own rather than in combination with other gain stages.

I need to spend more time with it for sure.  I love the Broadcast too, although it doesn't like mid scooped BF Fender voiced amps set clean-ish.  The Sidecar and Motorcycle do though.

JayGee

All makes perfect sense to me.

What would be the point of a sidecar without a motorcycle to attach it to… ? :-)

spev11

I love the look of the Hudson pedals but they are out of my price range at the moment, happy NPD 

Dodge

spev11 said:

I love the look of the Hudson pedals but they are out of my price range at the moment, happy NPD 

What I love about Hudson is his pedals aren't conventional.  It's not like other overpriced offerings that are basically a TS808 / Klon / Bluesbreaker knockoff with a component value change.  They really don't sound like anything else.

Expensive?  Yes.  Brilliant?  Also yes.  There's no real alternative until someone clones it.

stylesforfree

spev11 said:

I love the look of the Hudson pedals but they are out of my price range at the moment, happy NPD 

There's a single foot switch broadcast on reverb for £130. Although that's the same price I paid for my double foot switch version it's more than worth it to try out. Keep an eye on the 2nd hand market as you might be able to score one for even less. 

Hudson pedals are a weird one as they have created quite the divide amongst overdrive pedal users and even when they're in stock the scalpers still seem to try and flip them for a higher price than what they are worth.

Over time I've become desensitized by the £140+ prices for overdrive pedals after it became a slight obsession and hobby to collect as many different types as possible.

In the end I've discovered all JFET based overdrives sound the same, 90% of the diode based overdrives sound the same and nearly every silicon transistor based overdrives I've tried has sounded very similar.

It's only the germanium based overdrives I've noticed a big difference with and sometimes that difference has only meant realising that the sound of the pedal isn't what I'm after.