presence and clarity are more important in contemporary recording than space and ambient detail, even in classical music… so putting the mics up close is an inevitable fact of now. it is interesting that this is nearly always the case today, and it is absolutely antagonistic to the notion of “natural” recording. this is one of the more obvious reasons why “natural” (it is electronic after all…) is no longer at issue at all. there is some honesty in this but honesty isn’t the motivation. in reality, we rarely listen to anything with our ear right next to it… at least not for long. can you imagine a trumpet or a kick drum in your ear? a whisper or a tongue, sure… not a trumpet. yet, it is common practice to stick mics inside of these. no it doesn’t sound anything like a trumpet or a drum in a room, or a hall, but it has it’s own sound that is taken for granted today. the engineer then “assembles” the separately recorded sounds into a “mix” that balances the various levels into something that makes aesthetic sense. no, it has nothing to do with the way things actually sound.