Tips to warm up the digital sound - PT1

Ok mates, this is for guys (like me, sadly) who play guitars and basses through software emulators or try to recreate the real sound of analog or acoustic instruments like drums, Fender Rhodes, Hammond, analog synths, etc. using virtual instruments.
Today I did a little experiment with a loop played by me and composed of drums (played and programmed on a sampler), bass and guitar (played through virtual emulator) and a wurli (played on a virtual instrument).

This is the mixdown with only software plugins/emulators:
Vintage Loop - DIGITAL

The experiment is to try to give a kind of "analog spice" to the digital sound. I decided to work on drums and guitar.

First of all, let's give a real room ambience to the drums. So I recorded my own room ambience with a stereo couple of microphones (Se4 by Se Electronics) put in ORTF mode, while playing the drums track through my VXT8 (bypassing the subwoofer). The pre-amp (Audient ASP008) is set with a hi-pass filter on 250hz to avoid bass frequencies resonances.

Afterwards I passed this track through my TL Audio A2 with maximum compression and tube stage set next to the peak limit.
This new track is to be kept at very low volume.

Later on I worked on guitars.
I put a microphone (an Se4 again) off-axis against the woofer of one of my two Equator D5. I chose this monitor because of the coaxial tweeter, to avoid phase problems.

As I did for the drums track, I passed the signal again in the A2 using the tube to get a real tube harmonic distortion.

The new mixdown is here below.
Vintage Loop - ANALOG

Obviously it's not a macroscopic difference, but this kind of processing can provide great results if used with taste and courage.

Good evening, mates.