I hear in many modern-day recordings songs sounding like the drums are
so isolated but not so much that they're programmed. They still sound
live and all but the cymbals are so big and in your face without
sounding like there's any snare in the overheads. The snare sounds
different every time it hits but no cymbal bleed behind it in the
centre. Overall, the drums sound like they are all live but so
polished that there's no way gating or anything like that could get it
to sound so punchy and seperated.

My question is, could this be the result of the drummer recording the
snare, kick and cymbals seperately? Such a technique makes sense to me
in my head but since I've never tried it I wouldn't know how realistic
the resulting sound would be.

Any comments are welcome.

Thanks,
Dave