Philippe Zdar explains why every Phoenix mix got printed to Ampex ATR-102 stereo tape machine through an SSL 4000 console mix bus pushed hard. His method: drive the signal all the way to the edge of saturation first, then pull back just slightly.
Pushing to the extreme is how Zdar finds exactly where the desk and tape start to break up, so he knows precisely how much headroom he actually has to work with. Backing off just below that point means he's using nearly all of that saturation and compression while staying just under the line where it turns obvious or distorted.
That near-maximum drive is what glues the mix together. It lets the console and tape add harmonic color and natural compression, giving the mix more character and excitement without crossing into distortion.
Zdar also treats the tape print as a mastering choice, not just a mixing step. A digital master locked at today's sample rate stays frozen at that resolution forever, while tape holds more information that can be pulled forward as playback technology improves, so the recording outlives the format it was mixed on.