Distortion box made out of old Walkman tape player zOMG!!!!!!!

I have a really really old nakamichi "portable" tape deck that I got from my alabama NPR station which creates really awesome transistorized blurps and buzz. It's great on a drum machine. I didn't have to get all circuit-bendy with it, either, just plug a line in to one of the 1/4" "Mic" jacks and go to town, it has 5 gain sliders! I think I've even used it as a mixer for some things.

Yeh, if you make one of those, custom detail it with model paint and give it a name like the Tapir Tott Fuzzstortion you can be almost like Zachary Vex.

why would that sound any good at all, or even cool? spend 15 bucks on the danelectro fab distprtion instead.

you have no soul.

I should have a go with my big old early 80s panasonic tape deck and see what comes out.

Many many years ago I used to occasionally record directly through a cassette deck input, getting the idea -- sort of -- from the way T. Rex's Electric Warrior was recorded.

The input was easy to overload and distorted in a warm and spikey way that worked for some things. It wasn't unmusical at all. My Adrenalinn III has a patch input that can be overloaded to give the same sound.

The usage has its applications and has produced popular recordings.

My fave guitar distortion was always pushing the gain too high on my old 4-track -- until I learned all of Brad Laner's distortion with Medicine was based on doing the same thing with the same 4-track. (I think he actually carted it around as a stage effect.)

overloading mic inputs is cool- i just kinda doubt all the soldering work, buying jacks, etc, would really yield anything worthwhile. then again i hate soldering.

yeah I mean doing all that work on a walkman seems a little much, I agree, especially since you can probably find other gear (as discussed on this thread) for just as cheap or free that will provide similarly unexpected, possibly awesome distortion

Yes, but I have all that junk lying around, and the thought of being able to make it into something noisy sounds fun. I mean, I mostly do noise stuff to begin with (circuit bent keyboards and whatnot)

DONE!! It sounds like lo-fi garbage; I LOVE IT!!!

To those playing along at home, try to avoid actual Sony-brand Walkmen, as they use a ribbon to connect the tape head to the board, rather than wires, making things icky and complicated.

all you need is a tape player with inputs,i used to do this all the time

That's for simply overdriving the inputs, like what Tombot is talking about upthread.

Stevie (I believe) removed the tape head and replaced it with a jack, which seems like the only way to do it with a play only Walkman