Always been very happy with how I get my drums to sound, good heads and spending some time tuning helps out. For recording, it sounds great. However, I've been very unlucky, in my opinion, with the sound guys that normally do our local shows. Cool guys though. My band sounds great with these guys doing our sound, but they (both) are so hell-bent on dampening the toms to almost zero sustain, to the point I feel like I'm playing cardboard boxes almost. And I use a high-end kit, tuned well (as I said). I use clear EC2's over EC Reso on the toms, which both have dampening rings. Still, I get the evil look as soon as I hit my toms. I guess I will have to start bringing some moongels for every gig now, as the last time I had to use duct tape on every tom, top and bottom until the soundguy was happy. I'm not the one to argue about it though, as it's not me hearing the drums out there in front, but it still bothers me not to hear full tones and sustain from my toms when playing.
Just came back from a tour around Europe (w/ Six Feet Under), playing on another drummer's kit (Pearl Masters Complete), G2 over G1, no muffling needed at all. Not even on the floortoms, which baffled me. Granted, bigger venues than what we play at home, but still. Drums sounded incredible, so much fun to play. Must be some tricks that the really good sound guys know of that the regular Joe's missed out on, or something. It is possible to get a good live tom sound without dampening to death, even in a loud metal situation..
