Finnish guitar company Ruokangas Guitars has made a big announcement today with the release of the Valvebucker—the first ever tube-driven electric guitar pickup.
According to the company's website, the pickup was initially designed for a "steampunk-influenced one-off custom guitar with an active pickup driven by vacuum tubes" that the designers built back in 2014 and named Captain Nemo. But because the guitar sounded so good, the folks at Ruokangas were inspired to spend another few years refining it. Now, it can be installed in most every guitar the brand builds.
A Valvebucker-equipped guitar works in much the same way as a guitar with standard pickups, except that it comes with a stompbox-sized floor unit that connects to your guitar via XLR microphone cable. The Valvebucker stompbox also has an A/B box built-in, so players can integrate the Valvebucker guitar into their setups along with their regular guitars.
Functionally, despite being a single pickup, Valvebucker-equipped guitars feature a three-way switch for sound customizations along with the standard volume and tone knobs. There's also an extra switch for engaging additional boost. To see (and, more importantly, hear) the Valvebucker in action, check out the video above in which designer Juha Ruokangas answers some questions about the pickup and demos how it sounds installed in the brand's Mojo King guitar model.