Surely budget is a key factor. I'm just naming mics I've worked with that really brought out the best of my kit, which is always nice sounding within the room to begin with, I take care of that first. For instance, if you're going with Sennheiser, I'd rather use e904 mics, which are basically the sa...

In my experience, the best results have come with a great sounding room, a good bass drum mic and good overheads. So that's where I'd put my money and effort first. Find a nice spot for your drums and/or make your room sound better through adding some absorbing/reflecting surfaces. Then go for somet...

Yeah- 1000 for Toms and Kick. I'm only saying maple as I'm lead to believe it's one of the better woods out there (exluding the lovely exotic stuff) ?? Liking the look of the Rock tour set. I'm guessing around that price bracket, most brands will offer similar sound quality? so now I'm being picky ...

I assume your 1000 GBP budget will be spent entirely on shells. If you're looking only at maple sets, you might be quite happy with either the Yamaha Tour Custom (Rock Tour sets are made of mahogany) and the Gretsch Catalina Maple. Those are the only "cheap" maple kit that sound consistent...

I'd be more than willing to do that, but I'm having a real pain trying to instal Sibelius on Mac.

Silly pro tip for too much weight: split the load into two separate smaller bags/cases. I used to do that when I was gigging around with a small Rythm Traveller kit and could make my way to any gig by taking a regular cab. I also did that when I was using Mapex 900 stands, which weigh like two Yamah...

Well, that is if you want to go with big headphones. I only use those in the studio, for live playing I've been using the Sennheiser CX300 II in-ear phones and they're wonderful (and cheap). They have an amazing mid-low range that gives you enough power without using too much volume and pretty good ...

Sennheiser HD25. They're smaller and won't surround your ear but they isolate pretty well. However, there's a muff replacement I've seen working at a local studio that are nothing short of amazing. After 3 or 4 hours of recording I didn't feel tired of them at all. And the sound quality is excellent...

Actually, that's something he and Eddie always worked on together. The sounds for VH albums were carefully chosen and the choice of elements wasn't an exception.
I mean, even the Simmons kit sounded great

For what it's worth, a few years ago I started using slightly larger crashes: 17", 18", and 19" Dark Energies. I know: I'm a pig for using 3 crashes - but I like them. The bigger sizes seem to have more "there" there. Not at all dude, I've recently started using three crash...