[jeremyroberts]

PLEASE excuse me for posting the obvious... but this is not going to be rocket science.
Sorry in advance for the rant.

In order of importance, your recording will be successful if:

1. great musician and great music
2. great sounding instrument
3. great room
--- at this point, you can only f it up ---
4. good microphones (pick-em, doesn't really matter, any top-shelf matched pair, if the room and player are in good shape)
5. intelligent mic placement -- see #3
6. good mic pre
7. engineer doesn't get in the way

I'm not trying to be an [bleep] - it just comes out that way. If the player, and the instrument and the room sound great, why not just capture it?

As for the singing - yeah, you want this to be an OD.

I've recorded harp countless times... and the good recordings are when the player was a pro in a great room. When the player wasn't a pro, there's not much you can do... except put lots of verb on it (and that would be the proverbial polishing the turd...)

Don't worry about panning. The room will make your stereo for you. Just capture it.

Honest -- I don't mean to come across like a jerk... but the best thing you can do as engineer is make sure the room sounds great. A great room will overcome most of the things that we can do to screw it up. There is nothing special about harp recording (as compared to piano, or guitar or tuba.) A great player in a good space and our job is to simply get out of the way.