Hi folks

I am a newcomer to live recording, but have experience of mixing and overdub recording. I will shortly have a budget of around £1800 Sterling (about $3300) to invest in some new equipment to help me record small jazz groups live and on location studio projects.

I currently own:

MOTU 896HD (and Powerbook)
Coles 4038
Shure KSM27
Focusrite Octopre.

I have just tried out a matched pair of Josephson C42s and a DAV BG1 preamp. I liked the combination and have some samples and comments of my first live recordings at the end of my previous post:

(Dead Link Removed)

So I'm looking for some advice. With my budget should I go for the Josephsons and DAV (using my other mics as spots, the Josephsons as main stereo pair when the groups have more instruments than I have mics) or leave out the DAV and buy more mics?

I found the DAV a large step up sonically than the Focusrite which in turn is a step up from the MOTU pres. So I guess It is a trade off, a few mics with a really good pre, or more mics with a rather harsher (to my ears) set of pres.

If I go down the route of using the stereo pair mainly in the mix, what are peoples thoughts on using 1 spot on piano (eg Coles) - do you have to use 2 mics on piano even if as spots they will be used to add a little definition to the main stereo pair? My thoughts are I could use my Coles as a piano spot and the KSM as a bass spot so please say if you think that won't work.

Any suggestions welcome!

Thanks in advance

Alex