Christmas concert in two versions

[nanogeek]

This christmas I recorded a life concert of Händel's Messiah. Just for giving you an idea of the setting: The church holds about 800 seats, the orchestra is rather small (from right to left: cembalo, 1 bass, 2 celli, 2 oboes, 3 violas, 6 violins, and later on also 2 trumpets and Timpani) and the choir has about 50 singers located behind the orchestra. Soloist in the middle in front of the choir, but behind the orchestra.

I post 2 takes here, that have some differences (so far I give no more details)


My questions are:

1) Which of the two do you prefer?

2) What are they lacking? / what could be improved?

I know, people may want to know more about the gear, placement of mic., etc, however I would like to know the initial responses before I post more details.

cheers

Stefan

[NorseHorse]

A sounds like B, except with a high shelf of 3bd around 2k.

I prefered B, even when I wasn't listening to the clips side by side. The voices send more natural. And there is less room noise (which is boosted thanks to the high-shelfiness in A), making the orchestra seem more focused.

The glassy quality displayed by A isn't very pleasing to me. You could probably get away with a more subtle shelf though.