iDIDJ Australia Didgeridoo Cultural Hub

Can anyone offer any help? I just can't seem to get a good recording.

I have a Sterling Audio ST55 FET condenser microphone:
http://www.sterlingaudio.net/products/index.cfm?product=ST55%20FET&modId=0

I have experimented with room and microphone placement. The placement of the mic in the room doesn't seem to have any significant impact. But if the microphone is too far away, the sound is muffled. Too close and all you hear are the bass frequencies, you can't hear any of the nuances of pitch variation or tongueing. There doesn't seem to be a middle ground. There is a 10 db dampening option on the microphone that doesn't seem to do anything better than what I can do with the input mixer/volume controllers.

I have the choice of running the mic input through either a hardware or software mixer, or both. Then I have Cubase LE5 mixing software that came with microphone. Using this software I have a full equalizer. But no amount of fiddling with the equalizer can fix the recording.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steinberg_Cubase

To be truthful, I get a better recording if I just use my cell phone. That doesn't seem right.

Any ideas?

Problem fixed via help from a home recording forum.

Everyone seems to say that the microphone should be in front of the bell. Some have even advocated a clip-on saxophone microphone. When I put the mic in front of the bell, the recording was utterly overwhelmed by bass.

So I moved the microphone out about 6 feet in front of the bell, but suspended high above it. Add the two stereo mics off the the side and - BINGO! - that's the ticket.

I just use a Zoom H4 recorder about 2/3 feet away from the bell, no faffing around with mics,settings etc brilliant!!!

Paul