I'm not talking about male enhancement.

I'm talking about how most hobbyists (and more than a few professionals who charge steep hourly rates) record with every mic positioned about six inches from the source. They'll isolate their tracks. They'll sound rather pleasing alone. But, when placed in the context of a mix, all these six inch tracks combine to make a bad sounding recording. No amount of massaging or plugins will overcome six inch syndrome.

How to overcome six inch syndrome? It's very easy. Just make sure that you place your mics according to what sounds good versus some preconceived placements you've read about on the internet or in a book. Sometimes you need to use measurements, though. For example, overheads on a drum kit should be equidistant from the spot where the drummer hits the snare. If you use your ears, however, then you'll find that your placements will vary greatly and look sometimes nothing like what you've done before. Space is your friend. Pink Floyd's recordings back in the 1970s conveyed space so well. If you close mic everything, then you'll not put space into your tracks.

Be open to varying mic placements. Be open to getting away from close mic'ing. Be open to backing off a source to convey a sense of space to a track. You'll see your mixes come to life.

The first couple R.E.M. records had about no reverb on them, but they used distant micing and have a nice sense of space to them. The last two Talk Talk records, which are truly classics of beautiful and organic sounding music, similarly use distant micing on a lot of instruments. The effect of it, especially on the drums, is kind of eerie--so natural as to sound otherworldly.

If you have problematic room acoustics, it doesn't rule out distant micing. Use the nulls of your directional mics to your advantage, from figure-of-eight to cardioid. For omni, you can minimize the reach by bringing the mic in closer without having to worry about proximity build-up--because of this omni's sometimes don't sound as close-mic'ed as they are.

Bear

On the fliup side of a different coin, sometimes 6" is too far away...I've mic'd amps with the mic almost toouching the cone, definately inside of the speaker's surround....

DI is micing at a distance of zero, and in certain situations is not just one way, if ideal.

Point - combinitng all these distances on differening souces (IE preplanning - what a concept) can often times lead to things almost mixing themselves in the ambience department.

in a horrid room, i would prefer less room.

I do not think many people know what a good room might or might not be. I've found good rooms lots of places. Sometimes it might be in a fairly high end recording studio. I've found horrid rooms as well and sometimes those were in high end studios.

Interestingly, a lot of the sense of space you hear in certain 1970s recordings came from being in large but essentially dead rooms.

I think too much is made of room treatment for tracking. For mixing, yes, you probably the whole room to be fairly decent but a lot of problems get solved with nearfields. For tracking, you just need a sweet spot or two.

i have allays been a fan of, if i cant have a great room, i want a dead one.
i think it is to difficult to justify a large room today.
from just the economics, i lean to a decent size room ( as large as one can afford, and then a bit larger ), and dead.