Thanks for the comments, guys. It's all very helpful for future reference.
I agree about the tuning of the piano - in fact it's not a great instrument and really needs replacing, and they could certainly do with tuning it more regularly. The tuning of a piano is something I always acutely notice.
Unfortunately in these situations, you get what you get and have to make the most of them. In fact, I reckon I've made the piano sound a lot better in the recordings than it sounds in real life! :-)
The positioning of the main array was such that the 90 degree angled mics pointed a bit to the left of the violinist (LHS) and towards the end of the piano (RHS). The mid-way point of the array was focused directly between the pianist and violinist. ie I aimed to get the piano's full width from about the mid-point all the way right. It's interesting that Voltronic feels the piano is hard-right. That wasn't the intention! I mixed for speakers (using my Naim/PMC set-up which is very revealing), and checked on headphones (Sennheiser HD650) - no panning was applied to the main array mic signals in the mix.
I'll post the 3 separate mic pair recordings from that sample a bit later and see what you think.
Thanks again, guys! (I'm hoping others are finding this voyage of discovery helpful and interesting too)
Actually, I think it's a very nice sounding instrument, or at least your recording makes it sound so.
It just wasn't tuned before this session, but it's not that far out that it's a big deal.
I also wasn't suggesting that you applied panning at all, but that I believed your mics were positioned a bit far to the left, making the piano appear predominantly in the right channel. I just listened to your isolated tracks, and that's what I hear in all 3 stereo pairs. Your explanation of the mic position confirms this.
Maybe this is just my preference as a pianist, but I would prefer that the main array be centered on the piano, not the center of this particular ensemble. If this were a string quartet or woodwind quintet then that's a different story. But the harmonic foundation of the music here
is the piano, and that should be much more centered (again, IMHO). Otherwise all of the mid / low frequency info is coming from the right. Think of it from a concert hall perspective. A violin sonata, opera aria, etc. is always going to have the piano centered (or close to it) with the soloist directly in front of the piano or off near the tail.
Side question - how did the pianist and violinist maintain eye contact if the violinist was left of the piano? Was the piano not facing the audience, and angled somewhat with the tail forward? That would also help explain the imaging I'm hearing.