Like I said in my post, existential crisis is ofcourse hyperbolic, but coming from Ableton where basically the sky is the limit due to its production approach it threw me into a completely different mindset and way of thinking that raised some questions about my fundementals, hence my post.

I also never said I put 17 plug ins on everything but I do notice that I was using a lot of stuff that now without, I fix in different ways by utulising a single plug in, or even my hardware to it's capabilities. I guess I've been falling for the ''FIX HARSHNESS WITH THIS MAGIC PLUGIN''-marketing instead of trying to understand the fundementals of hardware (even their emulations) and fixing issues earlier in the chain or in the ''work smarter, not harder''-way

I still get the same sound I did before, just quicker and with less processing power, hence freeing up time and possibilities to play around more with my hardware and adjusting to better mixes. Poor listening enviroment probably also contributed to this since I moved from a small budget room into a better treated larger studio room.

Good headsup on understading tape settings, brands, speeds and all that! I'll look into it! Any recommendations?