You will be heard
unlike ever before

“The Steam with Valvebucker… a completely new world of sound – I‘m overwhelmed! It‘s so inspiring – I’ve never heard such overtones… 😳 …wow!” – Markus Setzer

Your new sound, with unparalleled low end clarity

Through the looking glass
For decades, the J and P style basses ruled with their archetypal sounds. The modern age revived a rich variety of active basses, rivaling the archetypes. But did it get any better? Or just louder, more compressed – more sterile, machine-like?

The Valvebucker bass rewrites the rules. Be prepared to step through the looking glass, to a world of sound you haven’t experienced before. A sound with low end clarity and such high resolution of detail, that you will be heard unlike ever before.

Tube sound under your fingertips
The big old tube amps with huge speaker cabinets used to be the golden standard of bass sound. In many ways, they still are – even if you don’t see them often used live or even in the recording studios anymore.

The Valvebucker flips it all upside down. We smacked the tubes into the bass, right under your fingertips, providing you a velvety smooth tube sound and more – detail and clarity that will cut through the mix better than any other bass.

Interactive EQ with musicality
Active electronics give you more control onboard – but the adjusting range of the EQ – bass, mid and treble – is typically too extreme.  The treble turned full open sounds piercingly shrill – or the bass dialed up feels like the speakers will blow up.

The Valvebucker EQ only affect the colour of the sound – not the decibels. The EQ is  interactive – for example, dialing the Focus affects how the Treble and Bass react – and no matter how you adjust the EQ, the sound is always musically pleasing.

One pickup – many sounds

Begin with adjusting the ‘Focus’. At one end, the unfiltered high fidelity sound with even frequency response and crystal like highs – and when dialed to the other end, a low-mid pushing rock bass tone with rounded off high register. Two basses in one.

Unlike in other active systems, the Valvebucker ‘Bass’ and ‘Treble’ settings do not affect the volume, but just the timbre of the sound, with carefully sculpted frequency range. In other words – all the knobs make sense from zero to ten, always sounding great, with no dead ends.

The ideal tool for both live and studio work

Connecting the Valvebucker

A Valvebucker bass comes with a Power Supply Unit (PSU) in the size of a standard FX-pedal. The bass is connected to the pedal with a standard XLR microphone cable. The pedal has two outputs – a regular phone jack to connect to your pedalboard and/or amp, and a balanced output to connect directly to soundboard or audio interface. The outputs can be used simultanously as well.

Easy to switch basses

The PSU pedal has an A/B function. In other words, the pedal has two switchable inputs – one for your Valvebucker bass and another (true bypass) for your regular bass(es). This means you can easily integrate the Valvebucker bass to your existing pedalboard – the PSU will be installed as the first pedal in the chain.

12 volt ac power

The Valvebucker is an active pickup. In other words, it needs a power source. It is powered through the PSU pedal provided with the bass. The pedal gets its power either from the 12VAC wall adapter provided with the bass, or you can use alternatively your pedalpower 12VAC output. The Valvebucker floor unit can not be powered with a 9V battery.

High fidelity, both live and in studio

The balanced output means that the Valvebucker PSU pedal is a DI Box as well. We use a Hi-Fi grade chipset to convert the unbalanced, high impedance signal to a balanced low impedance mic-level signal. This makes the Valvebucker bass an ideal tool not only in live environment, but also in various recording situations both in studio and at home.

PHOTO GALLERY

For your inspiration – photos of Valvebucker equipped Steam basses we’ve made.

HOW TO BUY?

Juha Ruokangas - electric guitar was an inseparable part of the pop culture revolution

Many of you familiar with my work already know that our online tool - the Guitar Creator - is an ingenious way to configure the specs of your dream guitar. But that’s not the only way - there are many more options how you can buy my instruments.

order a custom instrument

You can simply email or give me a call and we’ll begin a good old one-on-one dialogue about what your perfect custom guitar could be.

 

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Our family of dealers around the world has guitars available too. A hint - a great option also for those who want to trade in another guitar!

 

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