I was around at the time when we still made recordings on four track analogue tape machines (or eight track for the lucky few). It was awful. I don't miss magnetic tape at all.
In the stash, I have added a tape emulation JSFX:
https://stash.reaper.fm/v/38296/AnalogJoy.jsfx
This JSFX crudely emulates a variety of tape speeds by adding noise and saturation. You may add Dolby noise reduction if you wish. The saturation curve roughly matches a low resolution curve I found on the internet. In reality, it doesn't matter much because no two tape machines were the same.
I made this JSFX as a game. The rules are:
1) Choose the type of tape machine you want to use. You can't change it later.
2) You can only use 4 tracks (or 8 if you are feeling wealthy) to record your material on, and the JSFX must go on all of the designated tracks. You may send to and receive from other tracks, to emulate a small number of outboard effects, usually a delay and a low quality reverb should suffice.
3) If you need more tracks for your song, you have to bounce them down. When bouncing tracks, don't by-pass the JSFX (no cheating).
4) You may set up another machine for bouncing. It doesn't have to be the same specs as the first machine.
5) When mastering your final mix, put the JSFX on the master bus as well. Again, this does not have the same specs as the multi-track machine. It might be a high quality 2 track machine. In my case, it was a cassette deck.
You may of course ignore the rules and just use it as a saturation plug in. Much to my dismay, I have actually done this on occasion.