II. The Edit // JAN 18th

Olli thank you so much for that submission! Your remarks of your own recording show a very reflected view of your work, which is ultimately what we are striving for: Having a sound ideal in our head, listening back to what we just recorded, use the correct tools and techniques to achieve what we want to hear. You already almost went full circle on what I would call the "Correction Loop".

1) You are right, your sound is maybe a little bit too soft, but overall this is not the biggest concerns as nowadays preamps, ad/da converter and 24bit-recording are of such high quality that a couple of db's here and there won't add up to what we would call the Noise Floor. In fact, after analyzing your recording, your peaks are at around -14db and -16, which is absolutely usable and within the margin of a soundcheck. I would tell the musician in a recording situation to give me a little bit more dynamic and emotion, that way I would probably get the dynamic range I would want! But overall, you're in a good spot concerning your levels!

2) The sound of your recording is in fact a but focused in the lower mid-range. While we have some sparks in the high-end here and there, we are missing a certain airiness of your recording. This can be "faked" by adding a lush reverb, but ultimately doesn't change what is in the recording. One possibility that isn't used very often in classical music is the application of a saturation. This will add high frequency harmonics through mild distortion, but to be honest, I would first try to fix this problem with microphone and musician placement,

Reading through your description of your setup, I wonder about the big distance of your recording setup. The angle tells me that you wanted to aim for a ORTF-Stereo-Setup, but you doubled the distance from 17,5cm to 35cm. As the ORTF-setup is in fact already designed for larger ensemble, you might get an attenuation in 0° degree line when you turn your mics away and increase the distance between the microphones. Remember that cardioid mics will have lower levels off-axis, especially in the higher frequencies. Knowing that, I recommend to narrow your mic distance. Here's a wonderful overview of different mic setups by DPA:

https://www.dpamicrophones.com/mic-university/stereo-recording-techniques-and-setups

By the way, nerd alert: DPA makes great microphones, the 4006 which are in fact GREAT for classical music recording, especially for choirs, organs, strings ... actually everything. Two of those microphones are on board the mars rover Perseverance, which is supposed to land on February 19th: https://www.dpamicrophones.com/mars-rover

This will be the first true acoustic recording of entering another atmosphere! I marked that date in my calender, this is going to be awesome, cannot wait for the recordings. (all the other recordings we have from mars are just mathematical constructs of vibrations which got picked up by on-board sensors, having two microphones on board is something very different. The coolest thing is: the microphones have not been altered for entry into mars atmosphere, these are the same microphones I've already used for recording).

3) I would suspect that working on your mics will also improve the frequency pick-up pattern and thus improve the balance of your sound! Since lower frequencies are longer in wavelength, cardioid microphones are actually omnidirectional for very low frequencies. So fixing your mic setup will improve the sonic imbalance for the better. 

Another point to be aware of are room modes of untreated rooms. In lower frequencies, we tend to have several points within a room (and especially in the corners), where some frequencies are boosted by up to 6db (which is double the volume). Trying different spots in your room (moving around 50-100cm will already alter the sound) and you will hear a difference!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_modes

Olli Hi Olli, it sounds wonderful, I love the sound of a ribbon mic, which one is it exactly? 

It's just a tiny bit too heavy in the fundamental bass frequency for my taste, I don't know where you put your mic, but I suspect it was close to the sound hole. Try place it a little bit more off-axis or apply a soft high-pass filter of 6db/octave 

And please, PLEASE, try to make an MS-Recording with that wonderful mic, I'm sure the ribbon will provide a nice airiness for the side signal I'm sure it will sound very unique! Just use the NT-5 as your middle mic and route your ribbon on two channels, pan them L and R and phase invert the right channel! 

Edit: And I like the second version as well, very much actually! It has much more to offer in the high end, but is an overall balanced recording! The phantom image is somewhat blurry, but this can also come from my headphones (as I said, I did a DIY recording on them, haha).

Olli Hi Olli! Playing the introduction of "Nothing else matters" with a cold sound does seem to be a good fit, doesn't it? But you are right, the ORTF will sound dramatically different in different spots, rooms, with different mics etc., it needs a lot of care considering placement, since it was designed to not accentuate any frequency ranges!

I really like the combined sound of the RM-1 and the large diaphragm, is it with the MS-Setup and the correct routing in Reaper? It does sound a little "phasey" so maybe you can turn the side channels down a tiny bit! But very interesting workaround with the additional power supply to save your precious ribbon mic!