Maybe there is more to it than i originally said…and the closest thing to the truth is @Fin25 pedal comparison
Yes I love to hear your way of using them, which type and on what is best for you
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For what I heard I prefer subtle interaction like saturation ( tape is amazing) and overdrive
Tape saturation is bandwidth limited distortion, which depends on the tape type used and it’s clean maximum output level of low and high frequencies, which varies widely.
And then there’s a wide variety of overdrive effects, mid-cut, mid-boost, low-mid-cut, low-mid-boost…
The only way to decide what is best for you (OD or Distortion) or when to use them, is to actually use them. You could spend a few thousand dollars before finding the right one, or take the easy way out and get the AnalogHeat.
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I really like this tune:
It sounds really messy to my ears with the bass/rumble/percussion all kind of overlapping, yet it works so well. Of course I can hear the kick pretty clearly, but I’d say the rest of the drums/percussion sound very undefined and it kind of goes against conventional mixing wisdom. So, how to create such a sound? Is it as simple as sticking an overdrive and filter on the master and then adjusting to taste? It sounds like even the simple synth line is being overdriven and filtered in and out with the rest of the track. Any tips and advice appreciated…
Some analog mixers saturate/distort nicely pushing the gain to a certain level (clipping) if a clipped signal is recorded below 0db into the digital domain the sound is totally smashed but mixable along with the rest and eq’able as any track.
Here is an example how early hardcore kicks where produced:
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weird, it sounds like an old, worn out tape since there are no high frequencies …
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Did something like this on my OT by recording a loop without the kick and the filtering in out and adding some delay and LFOs
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Subtle LFO on pitch (timestretch on) does that wobbly tape sound
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Weird. I didn’t withdraw this post…
To get the firmest possible grip on what these circuits do and how they do it I suggest building your own. A Fuzzface kit can probably be had under $50 and building it is too easy to describe if one knows how to solder. If one does not know how to solder I would suggest rectifying that (it’s such a useful skill for anyone making any kind of electrified music) and then building the aforementioned easy Fuzzface. Then you can piggyback on that knowledge by building more and more complex pedals until one day (not far off if you apply yourself) you’ll be designing your own.
I haven’t visited freestompboxes.org in a few years but it looks like it’s still a thing. This is a vast resource for learning basic music circuits.
Pretty much.
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Sounds like what happened when I put everything through the OTO Boum and tweaked around with the LPF and compression. Clean boost mode of course 
Any tape emulation vst that might be able to approach this sound?