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The 24lb Fuzz Box I Never Knew I Had: Akai 4000DB Reel-To-Reel Tape Machine

Joe Perkins 2,127 3 years ago
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Welcome to Perky's Analog Gear Demos. Please subscribe for more demos of vintage & rare effects pedals! From 2009-2012, I lived on a small island called the Isle of Wight, just off the south coast of England, whilst I was studying for a music degree. One night, I was walking home from the bus stop and spotted a strange electrical box that one of the neighbours was throwing out. It had no plug, and a huge rainstorm was about to hit, so I grabbed it and took it home with me. After working out that it was a reel-to-reel tape recorder and fitting it with a plug, I experimented with plugging my guitar into the microphone inputs. The right preamp was broken, but the left VU meter flicked up and down when I strummed a chord. Success! Being a tape machine it doesn't have a 'preamp output' as such, but it does have a headphone out. So I ran a cable from there into my amplifier....and discovered a whole new world of ridiculously huge fuzz sounds!! To me, it's like a "greatest hits" of guitar fuzz pedals in a colossal 11kg box! What do you think? Huge tones? Or not for you? Comment below! Guitar is a Heritage H-535 recorded through a Hughes & Kettner Puretone (Fane Ascension F70; Aston Spirit Condenser, '70s Sennheiser MD441 & sE R1 ribbon) with a Schoeps CMC6 room mic. [email protected] 0:00 Intro 3:45 Playing 8:41 Outro Vector images by freepik.com

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