Yep - that's the engineer's job. I can't tune the drums to make a room sound... I can only estimate what they'll need to sound like if the close mic and room mics are blended.
Not completely, no. As I pointed out earlier in this thread, muffling does more than simply control ring. It accentuates the fundamental (by diminishing the harmonics) and produces a different sound than the same drum, wide open, with the resonance gated out.
Not every drum sound needs to start out open, just as not every sound is benefitted by muffling. I never assume that either is correct until the time comes to decide what sound I'm going for (or have been directed to go for.) Starting from a position of 'toms need to be wide open, and only muffled if absolutely necessary' is a real pitfall. Sometimes the sound needed can only be achieved with some muffling, and those are sounds that cannot be extracted from an open tom... they need to be created with some padding.
With respect to the Brayn Adams tom sounds, the ambience - undoubtedly digital - has more to do with the sound than the tuning. In order to make it work, the toms need to be punchy, not ringy. It's possible that they gated open toms and then added verb, but in that era, gating was used differently (think Tony Thompson & Power Station) so I doubt that's what they did. At least, it's not what I would expect was done given the resulting sound.
I probably should revise what I said about the drummer/engineer relationship. If the drummer and engineer have been working together for a while - like I have with Al's engineer, Tony Papa - and if they respect each other - and we do - then there is a certain amount of suggestions that we can comfortably make to each other. If we were doing a Bryan Adams parody, I might suggest how I think the tom sound was achieved. NOT to tell him his job, but more to let him know why I've tuned the drums the way I did for that track. But I don't do that in cases where I don't know the engineer, or where my opinion hasn't been asked. Sometimes my expertise is requested, sometimes it's not, and either way is fine - I'm there to play the drums, not try and produce the track.
Bermuda