basic introduction to tape recording:
http://arts.ucsc.edu/ems/music/equipmen ... rders.html
a friend 'gave' me his teac tascam 32b. gotta say i was very excited about puttin mixes through but after some try outs i got disappointed, too much noise when tryin to get to a decent level not mentioning the cost of tapes (regarding the fact that once you record a loud signal on tape you wont be able to erase it completely while the sound quality deteriorates with each overdub). my guess is that those small tape recorders are still quite a bit away in sound quality from the big ones used in mastering (studer etc).
For tapes check RMG international.
i would give it a try though, maybe mine isn't as perfect workin as yours