Can anyone help me with an amplification puzzle? We have cheerful little ceilidh band (you can see us here, though without our fiddle player: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wu4vzTt2cRA&t=7s, and if the clicky works, it might be this:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wu4vzTt2cRA&t=7s ) and in general,we get a reasonably decent balance of sound in a pub or small hall. But when we play a larger hall, I have a problem with the wind section of the band.

I can handle the amplification of the fiddle, bodhran, guitar, melodeon, mandolin and and bass guitar. My puzzle is our two players who handle whistles, recorders, clarinet and miscellaneous blow-down things.   Now, these two are fine musicians : one has been in pit orchestras and the like for decades, and they both sight-read a music score faster than I can read a newspaper.   Their parts are ‘arranged’, so they generally have music stands in front of them, which of course get in the way of microphones.

Yesterday we were playing a ceilidh in a big hall with a vast high ceiling, so the sound was going everywhere except where you wanted it.   I tried everything to get a decent sound from the wind section – dynamic mikes, condenser mikes, and eventually a combination of both going through two separate amp systems at once (!), and still I couldn’t get the wind sound to cut through the rest of the band properly.

Does anyone have any helpful tips on recording blown instruments?
Many thanks
Cappuccino, Norfolk, UK