BUILDER PROFILE
Brown Note Amplifiers
BY JOE CHARUPAKORN
The new ODR 100 D’Lite has footswitchable Clean, Overdrive, and Boost controls. Front-panel controls include Volume, three mini toggles—BR1/BR2, Norm/Deep, and Lean/Fat—Treble, Mid, Bass, Drive and Level for the
Overdrive function, and Master and Presence knobs.
The slogan on Brown Note’s MySpace page
reads, “Guitar Amps That Don’t Suck.”
Judging by the number of guitarists who
flock to the Fair Oaks, California, company’s
demo room at the annual New York and Los
Angeles Amp Shows, that’s something of an
understatement.
Brown Note’s founder is Moss Hudson.
Rather than follow the conventional path
into amp manufacturing—one that typi-
cally begins with learning the ropes doing
repairs and mods—Hudson made his name
by selling kit amps to DIYers. Eventually,
he added assembled amps to the offerings
and now Brown Note has a full product line,
ranging from low-wattage tone machines to
100-watt beasts.
The DIY ethos can be traced back to
Hudson’s youth. After obtaining the Radio
Shack 101 Electronics Projects Kit, Hudson
became an electronics freak. He took plea-
sure in converting battery-powered board
games to AC power, giving the board game
Operation a whole new meaning. And as
a teen, Hudson went to school with a kid
whose dad had “all this cool stuff—guitars,
electronics, and stereos.” It turned out the
kid’s father was Sammy Hagar. Inspired by
what he saw, Hudson scraped together
enough money to buy an imported guitar
and snagged a Magnavox console stereo
his neighbor was getting ready to trash.
Determined to find a way to make use of
the Magnavox, Hudson summoned what he
could remember from the Radio Shack kit’s
“Big Ear” amplifier circuit to build a crude
guitar amp. That initial project planted the
seeds for Hudson’s amp-building business.
What’s the origin of Brown Note amps?
PREMIER GUITAR OCTOBER 2010 107
I got started offering supplies to do-it-yourselfers. In 2000, inspired by sites like
