I usually mic my bass drum...& sometimes use (1) mic to p/u my snare and hats...!

The bass drum stays set...and the snare/hat mic I turn up and dwn depending on the set list..

In a medium club I use a kick mic or a kick mic with a pair of overheads or kick and snare mic with a pair of overheads. Depends on the size and acoustics

of the club and the style of music i'm playing. Sometime in a jazz or softer context just the overheads work well.

Yes. Bass drum, snare drum, rack tom, floor tom, overhead. Which mics I use depends on the kit/style/venue...

When you guys mic your kick, does your soundman insist on putting a mic inside kick? My guitarist does our sound from the stage and insist on having a mic inside the kick. With my old band I used two condenser mics, the bigger one was set in front of kick and the smaller one was used as an overhead in medium sized venues and it worked fine. He says it doesn't sound good that way, I think it sounds fine in videos I've seen, in fact, the kick comes out better than when a mic is placed inside the drum. He runs sound for a country band every week and insist he knows what is best.

I know what kind of sound I want and I don't like guitarist telling me what is best, I don't tell him how to get a good guitar sound. It's really frustrating because he is very stubborn and has to do things his way. Any suggestions?

I have miked the bass drum 3 basic ways, and 1 non-conventional way:

1. Inside the drum...really accentuates the "click" of the beater hitting the batter head, minimal "body" to the sound. Use this when you want the bass drum to cut through the mix and drive the beat.

2. Outside the drum...either ported or solid front head, you get more "boom" or "woomph" from the drum. This works well when you don't want as much attack, but want the lower frequencies to come through. "Felt, not heard" is how I think of this.

3. From a distance...really picks up the "natural" sound of the drum, as well as the rest of the kit. More of a room sound, but the most "this is what a bass drum sounds like" sound out of the 3 options. I've done this with an AKG D112, a Shure SM57, and an AKG C1000. Each mic brings out different frequencies, of course, but they all convey the same basic concept.

Finally, I forget who came up with this, but it's referred to as "The _________ Technique" (the blank being his name). You place the mic on the side of the bass drum, and it picks up the bass drum, snare, hats, tom, and any crashes on that side of the kit really well. Usually, this is done in the studio for that specific sound, but I've done it live when there were limited mics available, and it worked great.

So, ANY of these will work...it just matters which sound you want to capture for the speakers

Well, that all sounds great, but like I said, he's a very stubborn person and wants to do thing his way, which is to put the mic in the kick. I like it being placed in front so I get that bigger sound, but it doesn't seem to matter what I want.

The most common these days is a ported bass head with the mic slightly in it. Playing around with mic placement can give the best of both worlds, both attack from the beater and sub from the reso head. I find that micing a non-ported bass drum works better with a vintage 20x14 kick than a more modern 20x20 or 20x18 kick, as the mic is further from the batter head. Again this depends on the microphone being used. Some microphones have a built-in cut-off (pre-eqed) for bass drums) that is more radical than others, like the Audix d6, where a Seinheisser 421 picks up more mid-shape. If your guitarist just wants to throw an SM-58 inside your kick, it's pretty uni-directional and if not on a stand it will probably pick up more shell resonance than anything else, IMO.

For a non-ported bass drum I used a Sennheiser E901 Professional Half Cardiod Plate Microphone an inch or 2 in front of the reso head, instead of inside the kick drum (like this model is made for) and it worked great with my late 60's Rogers 20x14 kick, without picking up too much of the nearby bass amp.

As for micing a bass drum from a distance, this is great for studio applications,coupled with a mic fot the beater head, but I doubt i'd ever try it in a live setting, just too much bleed from other sources.

medium size venues, depends on a few things style of music , type of equipment you have, like amps Pa. etc and can you be heard when you sound test... if you are a country swing band probably no need to mic, on the other hand if you are a three piece Hendrix tribute band probably going to need a bass and two over heads.... really depends pn how loud you play... I always tried to play the same I never played quiet in a small place and never tried to play louder than i could ,if I needed more volume I miced....

Mr. Ringo....

The mature way....record a show doing it the guitarist's way, then, record a show doing it your way. You both, then, watch/listen to the shows together. Pick the method that sounds best.

#2....Tell the guitarist that you know best and put the mic where you want it or you do not want the kit to be miked. You might have to quit the band to make your point. This isn't very mature, for sure. Pick battles wisely in bands.