adding a pad to my ghetto box

[drummerdan]

I have this sweet 70's marantz tape recorder and it has a built in condenser mic on it. Its the box we use at the end of practice to benchmark our work for the night. When we throw a shirt over it, it sounds GREAT(for a practice recording) and we love it, gets a nice clear mix of drums, amps and vocals. Without the shirt it is ultra distorted and unusable. I think it was meant to be a voice recorder back in its day. I was wondering if there was a sensible way to modify this thing with some sort of mic pad or something else along those lines so we don't need the shirt. I'm VERY in the dark about mic padding and stuff like this so bear with me, but I do have some electronic experience. If its not possible, or just not a good idea then give it to me straight, cause the shirt works fine!

[Girl Toes]

Maybe some pants?

[bigtoe]

funny...i saw the subject and thought..."hasn't this guy ever used a towel or shirt?"

Mike