sometimes the resonace of a drum set can pose plenty of problems. a tom with a long decay can quickly get lost or cause freq problems with other sources, a snare with to much ring can just sound damn anoying, pinging away through the song, a kick with to much resonence can leave the feeling of no real depth and impact. its good to start with an un muted set, tune it so the decay doesnt drop in pitch (bottom to lose), so the pitch is even with the top head or tuned slightly above the top head. this will hopefully give you an even, crisp shell tone. then record a few minutes of the kit, listen for weak, to open sounds. start with light dampaning (moon gels) then head for the roll of gaff tape. try not to get rid of to much of the shells tone. imo a kit thats to dry loses it musicality. try to leave a bit of shell tones. less for rock, more for jazz or acoustics. when mixing if the ring is bugin you add a gate to it and try to pull out some of the shell (this is just for close miced toms). gate it out and add a bit of verb to give the attack a deacy as oppose to the shells decay.
