Jeez Tim, kudos on making that bass drum sound good......you are a good resource for any of my future tuning issues me thinks.
Mind if I flick you a PM on the odd occasion for any help?
I don't mind at all, but I don't think I'm an expert. I keep it simple, esp. bass drums; both batter and reso, JAW, maybe 1/2 turn above (a little more if it's a new head) and I seat it with pressure from my palm in the middle just like I would a tom or snare head, but it still settles in a bit over time- I check the lugs every few gigs by seeing if I can turn the tension rod with my fingers on the square head, and if I can, I turn it to where I can't, and use a key for an extra 1/4 turn. This is such a low tension that there isn't much chance of tension at each lug getting very different. With a new head and much less occasionally over time, I check them anyway, and what little difference there is, I use the highest as a reference and bring the others up. That sounds like a lot, but it's probably just over-descriptive.
I use P3 or similar self-muffling heads to get most of the wonky overtones out, 4" or 5" off-center port in the front head, and lately I've had one small piece of acoustic foam in the bottom of the drum, touching
neither head, just to tamper a few remaining overtones (at the insistence of our sound tech, but I think it sounds fine without it), and
no laundry or bedding. Any excess boominess anyone's ever noticed from it when I play alone is lost in the din of the band on stage. I even used this setup, minus the acoustic foam, in a studio once and the engineer got a great sound- never even mentioned further muffling. This has been with mostly 22" drums, with the exception of one 18" that had the same P3 style head combo, I think- matter of fact, it was whatever came with a Tama StageStar kit, which were basically Rockstar shells, same luan wood. I didn't have the foam piece yet and I left the front head non-ported, and it sounded fantastic at rehearsal. I never gigged or recorded it.
All that said, your mileage may vary.