Banjo in the mix posted by timexone

Greetings,

So I'm mixing an album for someone that was recorded "live in the studio" at Telefunken Studios. Since they chose to track live, I have been dealing with a fairly annoying set of challenges, some issues with bleed and phasing, but most I have overcome.

So the issue at hand: 2 of the tracks have banjo on them. I was not present for the tracking...I only have 1 feed in mono so i would imagine some type of condenser was used and its fairly obvious when soloing the track that it was close-miced. The track itself doesnt contain any bleed that I cant Eq out or allow in the track without it phasing anything out. Currently, I have it artificially phased out on the spectrum to not fight with the other instruments and off center to the right about 30%. I do like the placement in terms of where it shows up in the track, but perhaps because of the way it was recorded (live in the studio) I feel like i can't bring the banjo closer - more intimate if you will. It sounds like there is a natural ambiance to it like a reverb effect - or perhaps a better way to describe it would be as if it was recorded in a room and the mic is about 4-6 feet away so you lose that closeness. I dont believe any other nearby mics (like drum overheads) or anything are picking up any banjo to cause that sound to happen naturally. I think its just coming off the banjo that way.

Is it normal for a banjo to sound a bit resonant even if close-miced (which i assume it was)? I have heard banjos sound more 'tight' on recordings so I assume there is either some way of processing it or maybe its how the banjo head is tuned? Has anyone that mixed banjos come across this and possibly a solution? What approach did you take to spectrum placement? I was considering experimenting with wide panning and using the artificial stereo thing with the delay on one side, but have yet to do any of that. I figured id check for some advice first. BTW, unfortunately re-tracking isnt an option at this time.

Thanks in advance.