If you’re doing live sound for a loud band or in a larger venue, you’ll likely find yourself needing to mic up the drums and send them through the PA. But as the volume goes up, you can start to have problems with some of the drums, particularly toms. Toms carry tons of low-end information, which can build up on itself and create a wellspring of ringing low-end mush and rumble. In most cases, you don’t want to filter out the low end, since explosive bottom end is why you’re using toms in the first place.
One solution to ringing, rumbling toms is to gate them. Set the gate to stay open long enough to get the initial attack, the drum’s body, and full sustain, and then close down so that it doesn’t rumble in response to other instruments or other drums being played.
This will will keep your toms from negatively interacting with your mix and eating up headroom, and still let you turn your toms up enough to be punchy.