Our 3rd Anniversary!

Kuassa Inc was first established 3 years ago at our humble studio/office in Bandung, Indonesia. The name “Kuassa” was first conceived of as an inside joke, where “Metal Rules \m/” translates to “Kuasa Logam” in Indonesian.

Arie Ardiansyah and Grahadea Kusuf first met as highschool classmates. Grahadea joined Arie’s band, Bandung melodic punk outfit Disconnected, in 1999. Arie holds vocal and guitar duties in Disconnected, whereas Grahadea played synths. Disconnected released their debut album independently in 2001. In 2002, Grahadea decided to leave Disconnected, and several months later joined pioneering indie electropop band Homogenic. Thus, the two parted ways to complete their respective bachelor degrees, Arie subsequently starting his freeware project under the handle Aradaz, and Grahadea pursuing an IT career at Sun Microsystems in Jakarta. Grahadea resigned after 2 years to pursue a masters degree in business administration, incidentally in Bandung.

So it was that the two met again, and with the addition of Adhitya “Adhit Android” Wibisana, a business venture was formed. Adhit is, among others, Homogenic’s record producer and sound engineer, a SAE Institute graduate well-known locally for his deep production skillz, especially in the area of guitar recording.

The three of us initially started out as an audio production studio, but grew organically into audio plugin developers somewhere along the road. The reasoning was that rather than buying expensive foreign outboard equipment to produce our projects, we could instead produce our own custom plugins. At first, we thought we could “repackage” these custom plug-ins into commercial products for some easy money, gleefully raking in (virtual) pennies by the boatload into our (virtual) underground vault. Alas, products, it would seem, rarely make the effort of speaking for themselves. As Confucius pointed out: “A good reputation isn’t built in one day.”

As our journey continued at the Kuassa office, our love of building killer plug-ins grew. We started to feel that, maybe, this is our true calling. As artists, we treat our developed products as pieces of art. Pieces of art that keep on giving themselves helping create and shape various musical projects; our own, and hopefully, yours.

Are our reasons for doing what we do too personal? Perhaps. But then again, we aren’t subject to your capitalistic western ways! And what’s more satisfying than doing what you love and raking in those sweet, sweet (virtual) pennies from doing it? We consider ourselves, first and foremost, professional musicians. We may be indie, but over the years we’ve managed to do quite a lot andgarner a small fanbase in the ASEAN region. Arie’s band, Disconnected, has shared stages with such acts as Sepultura, DragonForce, We Start Partys, These Kids Wear Crowns, MxPx All Stars, Simple Plan, David Kennedy (Angel & Airwaves), and Robert Smith (Mae/Tokyo). Grahadea’s band, Homogenic, has shared stages with Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Telefon Tel Aviv, Sophie Ellis-Bextor, LMFAO, Club8, The Radio Dept., The Bravery, James Morrison, and Public Enemy.

Kuassa is now a privately registered company under the name PT. Kuassa Teknika, and has grown from just the 3 of us into a 7 personnel money-making machine with an addition of several freelancers. We’ve since moved upstairs into our slightly-less-humble office (now with air-con). 3 years have passed since the launch of our first commercial product, Amplifikation One, in April 2010. And although we’d love to take the credit, it’s all due to you, dear users, that we’ve made it this far. There’s only so much a product’s inherent quality and marketing will get you. Your feedback, your constructive criticism, and your enthusiastic support in forums throughout the interweb and real world has been of monumental importance to Kuassa’s success.

As a sign of our enormous gratitude, enjoy our special pricing for the month of April: