To Mute or Not to Mute?
This is an area of personal preference; some drummers refuse to use any muffling at all and others swear by it. Myself, I have always used slight muffling due to the fact that I was doing studio work (under scrutiny of microphones) when my career first started in the early 80's. In this environment any funky overtones were always addressed.
Rings:
I personally don't like the plastic zero-rings as I feel they take too much out of the tone and I like as wide-open a sound as possible. They also got in the way when handled and often got bent and kinked beyond repair.
Noise Gate:
I discovered a cheap method that is much like a mechanical noise gate; a small square of terry cloth-like material gaff taped to the edge of the metal hoop (not the head) so when the drum is struck the flap of cloth rises off the head allowing full tone, then drops down onto the head to cut off any discordant overtones. Very effective and very low cost.
Gels:
Gels are kind of in the middle of these two methods; less muting than rings and more muting than the "noise gate" method as they don't rise off the drum on impact so there is slight resonance loss. Hardly noticeable unless when isolated in studio work. I use gels when I don't want the little squares showing up on video footage - looks cluttered.
When not under the scrutiny of microphones wide-open, resonant drums can sound great. Even under those non-forgiving microphones wide-open drums can sound great - as long as they are tuned well. Really though, when the whole band is playing, likely the only ones to notice any difference between these methods are the sound-man or fellow musicians (maybe).
The main thing is to minimize the unwanted overtones before the guy running the sound needs to do any EQ'ing; and if you're good - he won't have to do any at all!
Brummet Media YouTube Channel
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