For those of us that miss working in the tape environment: I think we just need a VST to emulate the usage of tape (not the sound of tape, as we already have that.) When you press play on your DAW, it first makes the whirl up sound of a large format tape machine getting up to speed before your tracks play and then a whirl down once you press stop. Once every 50 to 100 takes it randomly makes the sound of tape breaking (flap flap flap) and repeats this sound over and over until you hit stop....Ah the good ole' days, how I miss them...

Anderton
I miss absolutely nothing about tape.

 
Craig, I remember reading one of your books with what i think I remember was a picture of a reel to reel machine on the cover. That book really helped!! Thank you for that!
 
Regardless of how much I love digital and wouldn't go back now for a lot of reasons - I did love the excitement of that time. There was so much to learn to get to a certain confidence level. A lot of MacGyver like circumstances to create in order to accomplish repeatable results on a small fortune budget at the time. I cut my teeth there and actually feel bad for people who never got to experience that feeling of knowing you were one of a few that had the privilege of recording quality material in a home studio. Learning and using smpte for midi sync to tape was also fun at the time. Living that and being thankful for my small studio is why I might be quick to raise my eyebrows at folks who complain about the smallest of troubles in the daw world. IE, going off on the density of coloring tracks and so forth. Most do not appreciate how much effort and finances it used to take to only have a fraction of the tools we have now.
 
Sound wise, I do like the sound of tape the best especially if you don't use some of the new plugs or daws that do a good job of emulating that sound. From cake's console module to a number of other character coloring based plugs - I can get really close to that rich warm sound now. And my favorite thing about daw recording given I have a strong recorded track, has to be the simplest of all things - I like seeing what I'm editing!! That one thing alone would pull me into daw recording over tape. 

musicroom
...And my favorite thing about daw recording given I have a strong recorded track, has to be the simplest of all things - I like seeing what I'm editing!! That one thing alone would pull me into daw recording over tape. 

A big ole' +1 here.   I've always been strong on visual representations.
 
 

The thing I miss about tape is that it was a known quantity. Take it to another machine and thread it up and you're off and running. No plugins that don't load, no antiquated operating systems or other minute horse-dung that'll stop the show. As long as you know how to rock the reels and make a splice your'e good to go. 
 
Of course, that going was a lot slower than it is with a fully-functioning DAW...but whose DAW is "fully" functioning?
 

Anybody wanna buy a DA-88 ?? The worst of both worlds...digital tape !!

I have some tape in my kitchen drawer.  Maybe I can put it on Ebay...
 

I don't miss tape because I still have a 2" 16 track at my disposal.
 
There are a LOT of things I miss about the era, some of which are directly related to tape, all of which were probably already mentioned:
1) I miss the discipline that tape enforced... you did not make edits unless you really needed to, you did not keep every take, sometimes you had to commit to specific effects or bounce-downs... all of which had the effect of making you think, a lot sometimes, about what you were doing. And yes, I think that it could lead to better output.
 
2) I miss the time it afforded - you had to wait while the tape was loaded, you had to wait for rewinds, and so on. And in that time you had time to chat.
 
3) I do miss showing off - window edits, spot erasing... this could really make folks nervous.
 
4) for whatever reason, I miss sitting back with my feet on the console watching the reels spin while listening to that "final" mix.
 
5) I do miss being able to fix whatever went wrong... my JH16 has no microprocessors!!!
 
6) more than anything, I really miss people learning to LISTEN to their edits. I've watched folks make edits based solely on the visual representation on the screen, and as often as not, maybe even more often, those edits do not sound as good as they could... if only the person had really listened. In fairness, there are no software tools that I've used that provide a true equivalent to audible scrubbing, although I am getting better at using the available tools...
 
7) while there are computer based studios that still have enough space for a band, I miss working with bands, because my current place doesn't really have the space. But that's more a matter of economics than just the presence of a washing machine sized tape deck.
 
I do not miss transports eating tape. I do not miss cleaning them, I am on the fence about aligning them - there was a certain peacefulness that came with completing the job. I do not miss the space they take up, or the cost of tape, and of course the noise and other audible artifacts are gone, and everyone one likes that.
 
In the balance I'm quite happy to have the tools I have, but we did lose something in the transition.

My feelings about tape are very similar to my feelings about film cameras. Tape machines and good cameras were an investment that told people you were serious. It wasn't disposable junk. You cared for it and you appreciated the engineering and people that created it.
 
Today everyone with an iphone is a photographer, and everyone with a DAW in their basement has a studio. The art and science has been stripped away from photography.  I can't get good black and white pictures with the best digital camera I own and I still use my tascam 4 track as part of my mix process. I mix from Sonar to stereo tape and then make the final 2 track in Sonar using the tape as a source. My kind will die off in the next 20 years and at some point it will all be ancient history.
 
But then again, when I was a teenager I built my own telescope and ground the mirror by hand.

I can't say I miss tape but it certainly had it's own mojo.  I still have a bunch of it from a Fostex machine I used in my brother's studio back in the late '80's through early '90's.  Would live to find a machine to bring some of this stuff into my digital world!
 
 
 
 

This may sound odd.
What I miss the most about tape is the smell.
I always kept the tapes tails out. (Tascam MS-16, 16 track, 1 inch machine)
So, if you were getting ready to work on something you had to rewind it.
When the reels got up to speed the air moving would waft that tape smell right up in your face.
I LIKE it. That is what I miss the most. My Tascam 32, 1/4 inch 2 track just doesn't quite do it.
I still use two Tascam DA-38s and two Alesis ADAT XT-20s.
I use them when I feel nostalgic.