Highly subjective. My favorite drum recordings have been with my buddy's Peavey RadialPro 1000 kit. The toast of the modern recording world today, though, are [="http://www.dwdrums.com/"]DW[/]="http://www.dwdrums…"]DW[/], [[url=http://="http://www.candccus…"]C&C[/]="http://www.candccus…"]C&C[/], [="http://www.ocdrum.com/"]Orange County[/]="http://www.ocdrum.c…"]Orange County[/], [[url=http://="http://www.risendru…"]Risen[/]="http://www.risendru…"]Risen[/], and other "boutique" (quotes intended) companies.

Be creative within your budget. I jigsaw-cut my early '90s Pearl Export kit into some crazy sizes--my kick is 5" x 22"--with relative inaccuracy (my floor tom has about a half-inch margin of error) and I'm very happy with the results.

patrick_like_static

What sound were you looking for that would cause you to cut several inches off the width of a bass drum?

In a word, rock: a defined "click" with some controlled guts behind it. I had a theory that a modern rock kick sound had more to do with the batter head than the shell itself, and found the added real estate in the dimensions was something I was trying to avoid rather than utilize (incidentally, it was the premise behind Arbiter's Flats series some years ago). So I bought one of those designer kick drum heads, found a decent tuning, and perma-mounted a microphone in its sweet spot.