I recently pulled out my old Otari MX5050 and reminised about the old days of tape-based recording.  My question, with all of the great digital tools we have  like SONAR, does anyone miss working with tape?  Do you miss the "sound" of magnetic tape, watching those reels spin around and the VU meters moving? Do you miss the results you got with tape, or was it just one big hassle compared to where we are now?  I'd like to hear your thoughts, especially those who grew up with tape-based recording and may still use it.  Are we in a better place sonically, or is it just more convenient (and cheaper) than it was back then?  Do you ever wish you could go back?  I'm a hobbyist that grew up with tape-based recording, and while the new digital tools are more than I could ever have imagined, are we in a better place sonically?  What are your thoughts?  What do you miss?  What don't you miss?  I've love to hear from our fellow forumites on this topic!  Help me believe that I can get rid of the old stuff and still be happy!!

It felt like more of an exclusive club when you had to lay out serious money and then actually learn stuff in order to make a record. It wasn't easy. You had to have confidence to hold a razor blade in your hand, ready to perform surgery on your hard work and knowing that you could be about to destroy many hours of effort. No un-do key. There was a certain satisfaction in holding your work in your hands, gently threading the deck, cleaning the capstan, calibrating the bias oscillator, rocking the reels to find the punch-in point. Coming home with a fresh new 10-inch reel of tape and imagining what wonderful things you were going to do with it.
 
Then again, I used to repair my own appliances and work on my own car and drove a VW bus with no heat. If I wanted to learn something I had to go to a library or a bookstore. When I was away from home/office nobody could get hold of me until I returned. I could only pack around a music collection in the trunk of my car, not my shirt pocket. 
 
So yeah, I am nostalgic about many things, but would not voluntarily return to most of them.

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Although for a LONG time I swore I would never completely leave tape, there's not much now that I miss about it. For a LONG time I couldn't get as good of a sound out of digital, now it's not only possible, it's pretty easy. Now, I did not say that digital now sounds just like tape but, (to me, anyway) it sounds as good (if not better)!!!
Nope, not missing tape here. 

No not at all. Tape was at best a very poor medium. Editing tape was a nightmare. 

I miss having three band mates standing around the mixer, to do the mix down and "mixing" as you recorded if you had to bounce tracks.  Making decisions before the final mix.
I just recently sold my last multitrack tape deck but still have a 1/2 track in case I want to destroy some 40 yr old+ tapes trying to play them back some day.  I've been getting silly money selling empty metal reels and the like.

The fact that it takes seconds to reverse a delay trail and put reverb on it, makes me actually seem to do that stuff less. 
 
I remember back being nervous, like Bit mentioned about cutting tape...especially 2", in front of others.  I also ran a 1" MCI tape machine that had horrible unpredictable brakes, and once every rare moment, you'd streach the tape..usually at the END of the night and you were getting too casual in fast transport speeds. 
 
However... I enthusiastically look forward to new technology and find it a tad hard to relate to analog purists and even get a chuckle out of the PC console emulators and all this other old gear software emulations.  WHERE'S the new stuff that's going to be around in 50+ years?  Is it going to be those esoteric mastering pieces?  Why is everyone and their uncle making an 1176 clone?  Thank God for a *Distressor* or something built within the last 20 years....but that's hardware.
 
Also, will we be able to play our mixes in 15 years? ...meaning will there be .wav files and the like?  I've already got a DAT and a pile of tapes, that I'm figuring I'll never listen to again.
 
All that said, I just got a new computer, X3e and some other software, and am enjoying a lean, clean machine, with some meat.  For now, VERY little 3rd party garbage, and love using X3 and what it can do.

One thing...a reel to reel had the "wow" appeal.  Also, you knew when it was in record.  The typical "bedroom" recordist usually IS in their bedroom.... laptop and some junk speakers.  $300 investment.  That bought a roll of tape and pizza for the weekend.

I don't miss aligning a 24-track machine, or paying $150 for a reel of tape. I don't miss warning the client over and over again that he is running out of tracks, only to eventually run out of tracks because the client can't decide which take to keep. I don't miss riding levels, setting up the machine to +6 and trying to sweat more level out of the tape. I don't miss the hiss and distortion of magnetic tape. My studio didn't have automation (too much money), so I also don't miss every mix being a "live" mix and every mistake making us start over.
 
I'm pretty happy with the new way, although I admit I kind of miss editing quarter-inch tape. I don't know why. Maybe because it looked and felt kind of like magic.

 . . . well I certainly don't miss the signal to noise ratio limitations that the tape generation gave us, and all those cassette mixdowns that sounded different on different tape decks playing back, dolby and dbx noise reductions were never friendly to my recordings, then there were the nights spent soldering patch cords to make it all work while sucking up the toxic fumes, alcohol and Q-tips to clean the heads, de-magnetization of the heads, the endless search for 60 cycle hum, mixes could not be converted to record albums unless you had wealthy friends  . . .
. . . but alas, those were the days . . . but these days Sonar is a cakewalk compared to all that.

I miss absolutely nothing about tape.