Not sure if this is along the same lines or not, but I brickwalled the shit out of two shows last week (Death Cab for Cutie 8/10 in Veneta, OR and Toad the Wet Sprocket 8/11 in Veneta, OR). I'm running DPA 4061 > DPA mma6000 > R-09. I ran a super hot signal from the mma6000 to the R-09 and dialed the R-09 input level back to somewhere between 2 & 5 (I blame the beer for not knowing exactly). The levels looked fine. On one listen, 100% of the kickdrums, 80% of the bass line and 50% of the vocals overloaded completely on both shows.
I put the key parts of your first paragraph in bold print. Elsewhere on this site, someone posted this information on the R-09:
- from level number 8 up to 30 is positive (+) gain
- from level 1 to 7 is negative (-) gain/attenuation
- level 0 is muted (no sound)
Therefore, it would seem like you were simply boosting the signal too much with your MMA6000. Basically, it would seem, it's best to have the recording levels on the R-09 set to at least
8, based on the aforementioned findings.
I taped Toad again tonight in Seattle, dialed the signal on the mma6000 back to under +20db and ran the input level on the R-09 up to 15. The tape is spectacular (at least in comparison to the other two).
And the above information would offer some indication as to why this second Toad tape is much better... i.e. you had the gain within the positive ("good") gain range.
Disclaimer:
I'm not saying the R-09 cannot produce good results using a gain setting below 8, I'm just speculating on why this user had distortion issues when taping (with recording levels needing to be set a good bit below "8"), based on information posted in another TS thread.
Overall, this seems like the same type of issue as when one records with a Sony TCD-D7/8, and has to turn the level knob below #4 to avoid clipping... even though the levels on the peak meter "look fine," you get brickwalling like a mofo.