Not to be a negative Nancy, but am I the only one not digging the Tucana model?

In fact, try the boost or sat switches, but keep the gain knobs lower (and try different settings with the two different gains).

When you get it dialed in the way you want it, prepare for some really nice bloom (and sustain, like someone said above). You can get quite the searing lead tone out of it. I'm learning how to properly use all the CA models now. It took me a while with some of the others too. Matching the right IRs is huge! (It's not quite the same as matching real cabs with real amps. Getting there, but still not quite the same thing.)
 
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Why is there so much variation with IRs with the model ? This isn't at all in alignment with the real world.
I just don't get it. Regardless of cabinet I use or mic the sound guy throws in front of it, I have to make very little change in order to get it back where I like it. Minor EQ adjustments.
Why is it so difficult if this technology is emulating the real world ?....

In complete agreement here. I'm confused on why the IR search must be so painful on almost every amp; some simple, some needle/haystack. How the ubiquitous V30 is so radically different based off the cab/micing. Why the vaunted Greenback sounds so different with each amp, but doesn't happen in real life.

I would imagine this is on Fractal's radar tho.

R
 
I sincerely hope so. Interaction with the IRs may just the one big area left to conquer.

I didn't usually have quite the problems "mismatching" real cabs as most of us probably do with IRs.
 
I found on my Strat that it sounded quite a lot like the HBE, but with some less lows.

Again the actual designs couldn't be more different. The HBE uses a typical modded Marshall style gain staging with the extra stage tacked on to the front end using a higher value plate load. Very typical of what we used to do back in England the 80s modding Marshall's. The tone stack is driven from a Cathode follower just like a Marshall. There's also a solid state clipping stage.

The Tucana uses less gain stages driven harder, a common cathode driven tone stack and no solid state clipping. The output tubes are KT88 in the Tuc and EL34 in the Friedman.
Friedman uses quite a large RC filter in the feedback loop which means much more bass is amplified open loop in the power amp stage. I use an RC filter, but it's much less prolific. The output response while not flat, is much flatter.

The two amps in the same room sound very different and actually play extremely different. The HBE has way more compression and a very modern type of thud in the low end that's useful for heavy drop tuning styles.

I only know about the HBE because I repaired one recently and recognized much of the circuit from back in the day. This type of modding is not new, even when I was doing it in the 80s it wasn't new, there was just no Internet and everyone was doing it their own way without any knowledge of anyone else. The earliest Marshall's I've seen with the extra gain stages belonged to Richie Blackmore and those mods were done in the early 70s.
 
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For the models in the AxeFx with input drive and overdrive, I typically set the input drive lower than the overdrive.

With the Tucana 3 model, and the input drive on 8 and the overdrive on 9.5, I still don't get a tremendous amount of gain / distortion. Master Vol at default.

Using a Suhr Aldrich HB pickup in the bridge position.
 
For the models in the AxeFx with input drive and overdrive, I typically set the input drive lower than the overdrive.

With the Tucana 3 model, and the input drive on 8 and the overdrive on 9.5, I still don't get a tremendous amount of gain / distortion. Master Vol at default.

Using a Suhr Aldrich HB pickup in the bridge position.

Real world, It has the same amount of actual gain as the Triptik. Way more than most people would need for recording or live playing.
Input gain on 10 o clock, gain on 2 o clock is a 70s /80s lead tone, put the input level up to 2 o click and it's a very sustained lead tone or a very modern heavy rhythm tone. There's a clip somewhere on Facebook of me playing sweet child live with a Tuc 3 . The input gain was in 12 o clock and the gain control on 1 o clock with no pedals in front.
 
Real world, It has the same amount of actual gain as the Triptik. Way more than most people would need for recording or live playing.
Input gain on 10 o clock, gain on 2 o clock is a 70s /80s lead tone, put the input level up to 2 o click and it's a very sustained lead tone or a very modern heavy rhythm tone. There's a clip somewhere on Facebook of me playing sweet child live with a Tuc 3 . The input gain was in 12 o clock and the gain control on 1 o clock with no pedals in front.

That is what I expected from the model. And is in line with the other input drive / overdrive models.

No worries. FAS / Cliff are so quick to fix inaccuracies, if there is something amiss, it will be corrected, no doubt :)
 
I'm starting to wonder if my firmware flash messed just this model up.

You know to state the obvious maybe you really just don't like it. The ii has SO MANY amps and non of us like them all. I hear clips of Diezels for example and thank man sounds good, I try to mess with it for fun and think man that sounds bad lol
 
Then I suppose the model is no where near the real amp because the lack of gain compared to the triptik is tremendous

I thought this at first....but then I bumped up the Master Vol a little and I liked it much more.
I got to my gig this weekend and cranked it up and thought.....whoa....too much gain. I actually dialed it back quite a bit.
(i'm a high gain type player....general cover band crap but with a heavier tone).
 
I thought this at first....but then I bumped up the Master Vol a little and I liked it much more.
I got to my gig this weekend and cranked it up and thought.....whoa....too much gain. I actually dialed it back quite a bit.
(i'm a high gain type player....general cover band crap but with a heavier tone).

I will have to give the MV a go.

I typically leave MV at default when I'm auditioning a new amp model.
 
Then I suppose the model is no where near the real amp because the lack of gain compared to the triptik is tremendous
Yeah, using only the metric of apparent gain compared to the Tripktik models, they seem very different. The Tucana with my Strat and both drives at about 1 o'clock is just a nicely driven clean sound in comparison to the Triptik Modern with similar settings.
 
I was having a great time with the Tucana 3 model earlier. Found a bunch of nice IRs for it.

(It's JTM45 time now though, baby!)
 
I thought this at first....but then I bumped up the Master Vol a little and I liked it much more.
I got to my gig this weekend and cranked it up and thought.....whoa....too much gain. I actually dialed it back quite a bit.
(i'm a high gain type player....general cover band crap but with a heavier tone).

How far are you moving the master up? I was always under the impression that a KT88 tube has a tone of head room and doesn't brake up as soon.
 
I love this amp, I've been using the Master vol at 10 with the both input and overdrive on 3-4. I thought I'd take a risk and post a preset last night but couldn't upload it to the axe-change site because it only accepts files under 11 kb (???). I also use a tubescreamer in front of the axe (real one) and even turn on the saturation and overdrive knobs on the amp sometimes. The other thing I do is add a PEQ at the end to bump some frequencies based on another thread I read here awhile back.

For me it's more aggressive/raw/open/present vs. compressed and lost in the mix as compared to some other amps. For example it cuts through way more than the Triptik model when playing along with a song. But I'm a headphone player, so no idea really how far I'm off from either the real world amp or the typical FRFR setup. Either way I'm loving the amp and the FW 15b release!

I agree that cab IR's are still the most puzzling aspect of the Axe FX. Through headphones I think I always end up with something really bright, then when I switch to something else it sounds muffled in comparison. So I have much more learning to do in this area apparently.

Tucana 3 :encouragement:
FW 15b :encouragement:
 
Real world, It has the same amount of actual gain as the Triptik. Way more than most people would need for recording or live playing.
Input gain on 10 o clock, gain on 2 o clock is a 70s /80s lead tone, put the input level up to 2 o click and it's a very sustained lead tone or a very modern heavy rhythm tone. There's a clip somewhere on Facebook of me playing sweet child live with a Tuc 3 . The input gain was in 12 o clock and the gain control on 1 o clock with no pedals in front.

Love your work.
 
How far are you moving the master up? I was always under the impression that a KT88 tube has a tone of head room and doesn't brake up as soon.

it's not necessarily about break up as it is making the power section work and the how it affects the interaction between preamp and power amp.
 
it's not necessarily about break up as it is making the power section work and the how it affects the interaction between preamp and power amp.

You don't need to crank the real amp to get a ton of overdrive. I actually designed the original for myself and I play in a rock cover band. There's nowhere I would ever be able to get the amp to the point of pushing the power tubes in to overdrive.
You gain stage a design based on its application. For a design that needs a lot of overdrive at a low volume, you do most of that and the harmonic makeup in the preamp. The Tucana falls in to this category.
An amp like the JB100 is designed to be run flat out so there is much less preamp gain as the output section becomes more criticAl to the overall overdrive generation.
Too much of both and mud is the result.

The master volumes in a 500 seat club rarely get above 10 O Clock on the real amp and at that point there's still tons of clean headroom left. Of course the power amp adds to the harmonic content, but it adds very little overdrive.

Another interesting point to note is that the Tucana has a high pass filter in the power amp feedback loop, which gives you a nice tight low end because the bass is subjected to more gain. For an amp designed to be pushed hard in to power tube overdrive, this should be omitted as all bets are off in the feedback loop when you hit the rails. In other words that filter requires headroom to function properly, as does the presence control of any amp where it's a component of the feedback loop.
 
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