This is an interesting scenario...a vintage tube circuit between a
Brit desk and a DAW...hmmmmm!
Couple of questions....
You state that your electric guitar will drive the line inputs on the Rogers (does the Rogers have magnetic head inputs you are accessing or "real" line inputs?). Are the line inputs balanced on XLR's, are they 1/4" TS or TRS, or are they something else (RCA, terminal strips, etc.?). What configuration is the "sub out" on the TAC? I used to have a Scorpion many moons ago. The Brits (and many other parts of the globe, actually) routinely wire their balanced connections OPPOSITE POLARITY of us Yanks. If you are terminating, say, an XLR to a 1/4" connector on the Rogers, the wrong polarity could be essentially shorting out the signal from the desk.
You might try a different output on the TAC. Does yours have an unbalanced Cue Out or Control Room output? Don't give up! I am really intrigued by what you are doing. I used to use the electronics
from an old Crown reel-to-reel to "squeeze" my mixes, and I would plug my Strat into the "mag head" inputs to overdrive the bejeevers out of the electronics..PEACE.

The rogers does have 1/4" TS line inputs ( microphone , phono )
The "sub out" on the Tac is XLR and 1/4 TRS out.

I will try other outputs tonight. My gut feeling is that your are correct about the polarity so I will probably end up rewiring tonight. I picked up the Rogers for $1 at an auction and was blown away by the way the tubes sound. It's all about experimenting.

Good luck!:)

This is all my fault !!!
I forgot that all of the polarity's on the input side of things were all "americanized". The sub out's were never touched.
Instead of diving into the board I just "corrected" the sub out snake and all is well now.

Thanks for making me think.

Great! Enjoy that rig...sounds like it was a great bargain!

Maestro, congratulations on discovering the magic of the connection between "old and new". You should have a lot of fun with your vintage RTR.

I've been using a couple of antique tube RTR's for months now in the signal chain to my DAW and have found sonic joy along the way. Some guys even have the preamps rackmounted. There's nothing wrong with leaving everything intact and original though.

From using it as a guitar amp to a thick and creamy line-amplifier; the interesting colors and sonic qualities you route into your DAW will be very different from now on.

Just thought I would throw this out there.

Part of my signal chain is as follows -
amek tac direct outs on each channel ---> DAW (24 inputs)
amek tac sub outs ---> DAW (24 inputs)

What this allows me too do is record the regular direct out to one track and a sub out through the rogers into another separate track on the DAW. I can assign any channel/s on the Tac to the sub out of course. I have had great results with this. On vocals this sounds incredible when mixing the two tracks together.

Maybe everyone has been doing this and I just woke up.

It's actually uncommon to see people using antique (or vintage) RTR's in that manner (as a line-amp). Most people if they're using a line-amp in that configuration (between the board and the DAW)are using modern gear because it's quiet and requires less maintenance and attention.

Quite a few studio's actually spend the money to have the pre's and line-amps ripped out of the recorder, updated with new capacitors and rackmounted with a modern power supply.

So far, I've just inserted the RTR in my signal chain in whatever capacity suits the application. The mic pre's are spectacular in some of the old tube RTR's and I also enjoy employing the pre-amp section to be used as a line-amp between my board and DAW and between my modern hybrid pre's and compressor.

One of the most surprising functions I enjoy with the old RTR's is as a low wattage guitar and bass amplifier; actually plugging the guitar into the mic input on the RTR, flipping the swith to "AMP" and mic'ing the RTR's speaker. The quality of sound is perfect for studio recording.

Ever use an old 3-head RTR as an echo unit for the guitar? With the added bonus of generating some great overdrive, to boot!!I had an old Dokoder RTR that had an auto-reverse function that would play the "other side" of the tape (a relay would switch the headstack). This was used for playing background music for several hours at a time. I added a mini-toggleswitch that killed the relay that switched playback heads. This turned that old RTR into a backwards-playing special effect unit!! Made me sound like Brian May..Then there was the old Sony RTR, the Ampex AG 350, the Voice of Music, the half-dozen Teacs and Crowns, and the Otari's...GOD,I'm old!!!!

Now that sounds like a lot of fun and very useful for some interesting sounds!

I don't have an RTR "young enough" to have auto reverse but have seen a TEAC recently with auto-reverse that looked interesting. You got the machine to play both sides of the tape at the same time?

I've heard the Voice of Music machines sound nice and the Ampex 350 is supposed to be interesting. I almost popped the coin for one of those 2 months ago but bought a new mic instead. It was one of those "either/or" situations.

What year was the Dokoder with auto-reverse? Do you remember?

I got it in 1978, I think, and it was a few years old at that time. I would play the guitar into it in Record. Then I would play it back into a Teac 2340SX (which I still have!), at the end of the "solo", I would kick it into "reverse play" (with the micro toggle switched so that the relay wouldn't switch the playback heads), and voila! I didn't actually do the mod myself. A wiz service tech at my local audio shop did it, and he also did something to trim down the delay time between the direction changes. I remember that the switch was mounted right on the headnest cover....
The Ampex was a great machine, but even back then (also 78-79) I had problems getting parts like brakes, relays,etc. Of course, there was no internet to search on. The V of M had the coolest level meter...it was this flickering-gas- green-eye-looking device.I do miss that machine, just for that meter alone!I wish my 24-track DTRs had some of those-it might give them a bit of character!