Fast Forward a couple of weeks and I'm in a new and more pressing quandary. Ha!
I did a ton of research and picked up some new (to me) gear, most of it from the yard sale. This includes a Tascam DR-701d, a nice set of three Nak CM-300s with the omni and card caps, and a pair of AT 4041s. I also got a couple of small tabletop/stage mic stands, one of those 10' Photek stands that people speak highly of here in the forums, a small AKG stereo bar, and a couple of cheap shockmounts and some cables. My goal was to not drop a fortune but to still get a kit i could use to record everything from a guy with a guitar to full orchestra, a black metal band, or a string quartet. We'll see how i did.
I've logged a lot of hours reading about mic positioning and matrix recording techniques as well. As luck would have it, I have the opportunity to make a recording
tomorrow night, at a place in west hollywood (genghis cohen) that's a bar/restaurant with a separate stage area. The bill is "Bow Thayer with Val McCallum" and I confirmed that it will be Bow and Val w/ guitar and vocal, as here:
https://youtu.be/yWlf1A7towk and here:
https://youtu.be/bX8L8lvLhtwI haven't been to the venue, but it looks like "your standard hall," which is good, imo. Carpeted with seats and stuff hanging from the ceiling, so i'm assuming it'll be pretty dry. I added some pictures I found online at the bottom of this post that give an idea of the space.
I was thinking that (based on the advice above) that I could run a spaced pair of the Nak CM-300s with the omni caps on (or right in front of) the stage, down low, avoiding the monitors, and use the AT4041s in a stereo pair on a stand, about 8 feet in the air in the middle of the hall (but how far back?) with an appropriate delay on the omnis. I'm kind of intrigued by the stereo zoom technique, and was thinking to use that instead of something like ORTF or X-Y. I also thought i might try to get a line from the board to one of my two-tracks, but i'm not too worried about that.
Thoughts?
Thanks for all the input so far.
The hall, facing the stage:
A full stage:
Looking to the back of the hall: