Overloading Tape Machine Electronics?

[Matt C.]

here's my question - will sending a very hot signal into a tape machine end up frying its electronics?

I am getting ready to do an all-analog recording of a band that likes a very lo-fi, blown out sound, and i'm expecting some serious tape compression to help me get that sound. i'll be doing tracking on a Tascam 58 and mixing down to a Revox B77. But I'm worried that if I track things really hot to begin with on the 58, or crank the levels during mixing and peg the meters on the Revox, i will end up damaging the machines.

is this the case or am i just paranoid? am i better off doing something ridiculous like sending the whole mix through my tiny Porta-studio and then into the Revox? thanks.

 

[dodgeaspen]

If I'm understanding right you are going to be recording to a level that's to high and will have lots of distortion? I'm not sure if that would even yield a good sound at all. Maybe I missed the point entirely.

 

[lo.fi.love]

Overdrive your mic pres and send the signal to your deck so that it averages somewhere between 0 and 3 on your deck's VU. Turn noise reduction off, if you have it.

That will be plenty "hot" enough without doing damage to anything. The mic preamps will work like limiters and compress the signal a lot; if you hit the tape too hard it will be twice as compressed and twice as distorted, and it'll likely sound like total garbage. You won't break anything, though.

I wouldn't recommend doing this often, though.

 

[Matt C.]

yeah i'm looking for noticable distortion, not just nice and warm. "total garbage" might do the job. thanks for the help, i just wanted to make sure i wasn't going to wreck all my gear when experimenting with this.

 

[miroslav]

I am getting ready to do an all-analog recording of a band that likes a very lo-fi, blown out sound...

First thing you do when they set up, is walk around and kick in all the speakers on their guitar/bass cabs.




Find some really cheap, crappy "Radio Shack" mics...no need to overload the pres and tape deck. That way, worst case, you blow out a few crappy mics instead of frying the electronics on your better gear,

 

[Bobby Darko]

mm, I don't know. cheap mics do not exactly create the same effect as overloaded pre's in my experience. What I do is this: get an old cassette deck/porta studio with mic inputs, use good quality dynamics and turn the pre's way up (not all the way but the peaks far in the red). It works lovely on guitars and sometimes even on VOX. Just don't track everything through it and you'll have a good garage sound...it works for me.

This way, it doesn't matter too much if you blow the pre's, but I never managed to do that and I did some weird heavy stuff! And indeed don't go into the red on your recorder, just the pre's on the deck...