The pillow is definitely going to muffle your sound. I would start by taking the pillow completely out. Although the pillow does roll-off a lot of the high frequencies, it's also eating up space in your Kick drum, reducing the tone and enhancing the punch.

Since you've been using a pillow in the past, my recommendation would be to try an Aquarian Super Kick I or II. The I is a single-ply, the II is a two-ply. I personally prefer the single-ply because of the increased tone it has. These drumheads have a dampening material built into them. If you like the muffled sound but just need a bit more response, you could try the Aquarian Impact head which is the same as the Super Kick, but with a broader muffling ring built in. I'm really digging my Aquarian Full Force Kick drumheads on my FIBES 18x22 Kick drum!

If you don't want to purchase a new drumhead right now, take the pillow out, loosen both the batter and resonant drumheads, and begin tuning from scratch. Read my Basic Drumset Tuning article. Start with the heads as loose as possible. Once you get some tone and the low-end that you want, use a towel ... laying it against the drumhead to see if that will reduce the "ring" that you don't want.

Always start small when it comes to dampening your drums. Try to tune the drums as wide open and free of dampening material as possible. Why? Because you'll get more tone and full-bodied sound from the drum. Use dampening materials sparingly.

Also know that every room or venue is different. Don't be surprised that your drums sound fantastic in one room while not so good in another. You'll need to tune and dampen based on the room and the sound reflections in the room, not to mention if you are micking your drums.

Spend a little time searching the forum for other responses on this topic; I/we have answered and discussed this topic at length over the years.