Hey @heaterville thank you for dropping by. The Slate's tape machine is really a great plugin. It really does what it says. 

You are correct that some plugins are meant to be pushed hard to get them to saturate. As long as the signal is pushed on the input of the plugin and brought back down on the output of it, so that the channel itself in the DAW is not clipping, it's fine. Some plugins even suggest the optimal level you should push the signal into the plugin to get the best out of them. Cool stuff!