Tucana praise (and preset building tutorial)

fcs101

fcs101

Axe-Master
I quickly latched onto the Tucana amp model after getting my FM3; it's my favorite. It's such a great amp, very versatile, and as Alan Phillips has said, it is difficult to get a bad tone out of it.

Anyway John Cordy has apparently discovered it as well. He does such a great job of showcasing it, but more than that I thought some people might enjoy watching how he goes about building a preset and dialing it in as there are multiple comments in the forum of folks just not being good at building their own presets.

 
I’ve tried this amp before and every time that weird mid voicing it has drove me away. I watched the video and gave it another try last night. The clean channel is good. But I gave up after trying the lead. So I tried again tonight and got it sort of where I liked it. Used the output eq, which I rarely use, set on the Mesa 5 band. Dropped the 750hz down a good amount. Did a bunch of tweaking and it sounds ok. I’ll try it through the speaker tomorrow. I think I’m sensitive to mids. Almost never use the bright cap on Marshalls. But I have to be honest, I don’t get this amp. What’s the trick? The mid voice is very prominent to me.
 
skolacki said:
I’ve tried this amp before and every time that weird mid voicing it has drove me away. I watched the video and gave it another try last night. The clean channel is good. But I gave up after trying the lead. So I tried again tonight and got it sort of where I liked it. Used the output eq, which I rarely use, set on the Mesa 5 band. Dropped the 750hz down a good amount. Did a bunch of tweaking and it sounds ok. I’ll try it through the speaker tomorrow. I think I’m sensitive to mids. Almost never use the bright cap on Marshalls. But I have to be honest, I don’t get this amp. What’s the trick? The mid voice is very prominent to me.
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I hated the Tucana when I soloed it initially. The mids were just unpleasant to me playing it in my room. But with the band? It was a whole different story. Sat great with the full band.
 
skolacki said:
I’ve tried this amp before and every time that weird mid voicing it has drove me away. I watched the video and gave it another try last night. The clean channel is good. But I gave up after trying the lead. So I tried again tonight and got it sort of where I liked it. Used the output eq, which I rarely use, set on the Mesa 5 band. Dropped the 750hz down a good amount. Did a bunch of tweaking and it sounds ok. I’ll try it through the speaker tomorrow. I think I’m sensitive to mids. Almost never use the bright cap on Marshalls. But I have to be honest, I don’t get this amp. What’s the trick? The mid voice is very prominent to me.
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Are you playing through headphones (you mention that you'll "try it through the speaker tomorrow")? That could make a difference. Then of course there are cab/IR questions.

Noted your Mesa comment, if you're partial to them, then note this comment from Alan Phillips (pulled from Yek's guide): "The gain staging, overdrive voicing and output stage are night and day to ANYTHING Mesa, any owner of the real amp would attest to that.” – Alan Phillips

The factory preset was my first experience and I immediately liked it, so that may tell you something. Some of it may come down to personal preference and musical style.
 
iaresee said:
I hated the Tucana when I soloed it initially. The mids were just unpleasant to me playing it in my room. But with the band? It was a whole different story. Sat great with the full band.
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Yea, exactly this. It's voiced to be mixed, and sounds great live. I initially used the Tucana back in the old AF2 days as my main patch for probably 5 years (don't quote me on the time, but a long time), and it just thickened up my thin sounding Strat perfectly. It's still my favorite today. The real deal is an absolute beast of an amp- dual KT-88s in that power stage...
 
fcs101 said:
Are you playing through headphones (you mention that you'll "try it through the speaker tomorrow")? That could make a difference. Then of course there are cab/IR questions.

Noted your Mesa comment, if you're partial to them, then note this comment from Alan Phillips (pulled from Yek's guide): "The gain staging, overdrive voicing and output stage are night and day to ANYTHING Mesa, any owner of the real amp would attest to that.” – Alan Phillips

The factory preset was my first experience and I immediately liked it, so that may tell you something. Some of it may come down to personal preference and musical style.
Click to expand...

Yes through phones. I use correction on the phones and it translates pretty well to my FRFR. The Mesa reference was just because I was trying figure out where to cut and I tried the 5 band first. Since I went with FAS I haven’t spent much time on the Mesas. I’ll try my preset today and play with some music. Listening to some of my old fav tunes, I hear a lot of that cocked wah type voicing. I guess that was done to cut through.
 
skolacki said:
Yes through phones. I use correction on the phones and it translates pretty well to my FRFR. The Mesa reference was just because I was trying figure out where to cut and I tried the 5 band first. Since I went with FAS I haven’t spent much time on the Mesas. I’ll try my preset today and play with some music. Listening to some of my old fav tunes, I hear a lot of that cocked wah type voicing. I guess that was done to cut through.
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I have the little luxury of having a music room in my basement and no immediate neighbors so I'm able to play at a little higher volumes so maybe that's why I took to it right away.
 
I hear so much about Tucana and how amazing an amp it is... and the tone doesn't grab me when I hear it... meh. Maybe you guys are right, it has to be heard in full stage volume context. I might pop in a Tucana at a future show for a song or two, see how it feels.
I suppose it's kind of like the Vox's, on their own they are too bright for me, but everyone swears it's awesome when they are playing it live.
 
fcs101 said:
@Rick owned one previously, but sold it a few years back I believe.
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Yea, he did- he gave me some good advice re: the Tucana when I lucked out an and picked mine up. The real deal sounds just like the model. CAs are such well balanced amps- you can just hear everything through them. I love mine, but the model really sounds good.
 
Man... I haven't revisited the Tucana in a really long time. I could just never gel with it.

The tones in this video are excellent so I need to revisit these models. On my list for action today!
 
I love this amp - in many ways a superb Plexi.

For me - IR is key. I love it with the York Audio Friedman Phil X

And adding a jumped bassman in the same cab gives a nice treble enhancement
 
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