If you can get hold of an iPad or an iPhone then I think there are two apps you should already have access to from buying the iRig preamp.
VocaLive3 and iRigRecorder3 these seem pretty powerful for your intended use.
However be very wary of going down the ‘nudderbitokit’ rabbit hole.
Point 4 in your original post highlights one of the main tools at your disposal, mic placement and room acoustics. The key to developing this is experimentation and using your ears to find or create sweet spots, then using knowledge to find out how the mic needs to be placed to capture those natural effects, while eliminating unwanted artefacts.
A couple of things to try would be to move about the space clapping every now and then while listening to the sounds coming back to your head. Turn your head, climb up high get right down low & find how that room is reacting to the sounds. Once you have some interesting spots to try, get someone to play loudly and quietly through each of the courses on your mandolin while they, then you move position to see how the sounds change. There’ll be some real surprises thrown up by this. Deciding whether they’re good or bad will depend on your ideas & taste in mandolin sound.
Once you have a few key spots and directions to play in, take the mic on a stand and set up to monitor it through your recording chain in as isolated a manner as possible. That could be through closed headphones or earbuds if you’re not set up with loads of kit. Consider getting an extension lead to allow you to check the sound from outside the room to get a more isolated insight into what’s actually going on in the kit. Move the mic about from your listening positions, especially further back or closer. Your head had a definite effect on what you hear by comparison with a mic & different mics need to be located differently to capture that sweet spot sound.
As for corners these can dramatically alter the sound, you could already be coming up against issues such as comb-filtering which could be leading to you hearing the room as dead. Moving things about so there are no paralell surfaces or mics in the same plain as any walls should help
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