Hi guys,
Cliff owns a Tucana 3 and as of this week also a Triptik 50W (a lovely one in a gorgeous figured maple head cab actually). The Triptik originally modeled is the Axe was borrowed from a friend of mine and is actually a little modified. I drive Cliff nuts because I'll send him schematics, but I hand tweak each one, so when he opens his own up, it invariably different to the schematic. I do this so they all sound releatively similar and consistent. When you are building in the real world, you are dealing with hundreds of components that all have tolerances ranging from +/-1% to +/-20% as well as the effects of lead dress and the huge differences in tubes out there. So anyone who says they clone a Dumble or whatever because they are using identical components and values are generally missing the point totally. I cloned 5 Trainwrecks's for actual TW owners back in 2007. The owners sent me their amps to check out. I never opened up one of them. I just played them then recreated the tones I was hearing.
As most of you know Cliff owns many of the amps modeled in his products.
Firstly, the Tucana isn't a Dumble clone. The OD series amps are a bit closer to that thing, but still not clones. I've worked on a lot of Dumbles and they really aren't my thing. I'm British, I come more from the Marshall camp.
I play out live every week in a popular local cover band. I designed the original Tucana 1 model back in 2006 for myself. It was never ever meant to be a model in the CA lineup. But a few guys heard it and liked it so I added it and it to the lineup as a stand alone model or an ugrade to an OD2/3. I then updated it in 2010 to the Tucana 2 and more recently the Tucana 3. It's always been the flagship model and the one where I try out new ideas and designs that often also get included eventually in the other models.
The amp is meant for a gigging session player / cover band player /wedding band player. It's power, functions, ease of use, clarity of the front panel controls on a dark stage, biasmon circuit and wide array of tones make it a very useable 'live' model, just as it was always meant to be even before it was just my own amp.
To answer the question on the Axe taking away sales because it has a good emulation of the model....is about as far from the truth as you can get. They are different technologies and have different uses for different people. I use the amp in situations I wouldn't use an Axe and I use the Axre in situations its impossible to use the amp. All are part of my tool kit. I don't get in to the whole tube vs digital BS. Use whatever is the most suitable for your project. Right tool for the job. People who are hard left or hard right on the subject and generally not very experienced players in the real world......or simply forum trouble makers / haters.