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Scott - I appreciate the many times you have responded in the past to
my questions, and all the other informative material you post here
regularly. I hope you will take a moment and give me your thoughts on
an ongoing problem I experience.

I have a generally dead tracking room - about 17x23x8' with carpet
floor. i have done 5 CDs in this room for a local harp and flute duo,
playing celtic, traditional, and some classical material. i have good
mics (DPA 4011s, schoeps cmc64s, akg c481s, royer r-121) and HV3
preamps, going into a roland vs1880. i mix in realtime to a taqscam
CD recorder. tannoy active reveals.

from your past posts, i know that you prefer nice live venues to
record in, and you prefer mosr distant micing techniques, but i just
dont have access to any halls, or decent rooms to do the work with
this group (it costs money to rent anything, and it takes a long time
for this group to get all their tracks down), and the group likes to
work at their leisure in the studio facility, so i am basically stuck
with doing it this way. they also do not like to record together, so
it is tracking one instrumetn at a time. i know you would not do it
this way, but perhaps you can at least help me minimize the problems
that crop up recording this way.

since the room is dead, i generally use close mics. i mic the harp
(big pedal harp) with a stereo pair of 4011s, in a ORTF or more narrow
DIN setup about 3-4 out front 3 feet high. i mic the flute with a
single C481 or ribbon about 3 feet out and a little above the flute.

now the problem - no matter what i do, i cannot get a flute sound that
i like very much. i can always make the harp sound very nice,
likewiswe the cello and violin that we use on some songs. however,
all the instruments (being mic'ed close) sound very up front, no
matter how much reverb i apply. the only way i can make th flute
sound decent is to give it plenty of reverb, which often pushes it
back behind the other instruments in the mix and doesnt sound right.
if i back off the verb, the flute is too in-your-face.

pretty much all of it sounds a little too in your face for me - is
that only because of the close micing approach? should i back the
mics off to 5-6feet or further even in a dead room? i have of course
tried that, and generally always prefer the closer mic as cleaner and
more detailed, though again, by the time i mix with other stuff, it is
too loud and up front (oddly sounds too loud even if i pull way back
on the gain).

i try to match the reverb and sound of good james galway CDs, but
hardy har... even though i know he often records in studio settings
(like his work with the cheiftains, where he is about 4 feet from a
c414). i have also tried to emulate the way-close studio sound of
bonnie rideout and her group, with no luck - her material is extremely
close miced and very up front sounding, but still doesnt soudn as
unreal as my stuff (it sounds like it is heavily compressed, while i
never use any compression) given the many limitations i have
outlined, how can i best acheive a realistic sounding recording?
thanks for your time.