Here's an idea for deadening the ring on your toms without killing
them.
A short while ago I was looking for some foam rings for studio drums
and
it was humorous how much overly expensive trash is out there. I
finally found a material called Volera, an 1/8" polyethylene foam and
made my own 1" wide rings. From many years of experimenting, I guessed
it would work and I got lucky, they sound really good. I bought a set
of cheap Pacific drums and they had cheap skins so I figured it
wouldn't hurt to experiment. I siliconed the rings to the top skin,
and put a few dabs of silicone on the bottom head while hitting the
top skin until it sounded the way I wanted. I ended up fine tuning
both skins with a few small pieces of tape. The Volara costed about
$6.00 at a foam store. Just figured I'd pass it along. Have a great
weekend!