upload a sample of the bass (on its own and within a song) and we'll help you with that.

mactreouser, post: 448298, member: 47968 wrote: Hi,
Any suggestions to makes the Bass Clean Tone (recording) sound better?

Plugins?
Bass Head?
Pre-amp?

How I recorded? Just play thru DI Box

To me the sound I'd be looking for is very dependant of the song ambiance and style.
I never needed it to be exciting if the bass does its job.. but many things can be done to give it a unique character.
First, start with fresh strings. 8 years old will sound dull..
Record clean ; I always record it clean and work my way. If the sound is too colored, there is no coming back.
Once recorded with a good preamp, the right eq settings may be all it needs.
You could also : reamp it, to a bass amp or tube preamp (with a bit of saturation) or drive it to distortion and blend that signal to the original (be carefull with phases)
I personnaly stay away from chorus, flanger, delay et other effects.. I like my bass to be the foundation and be a strong and right to the point one.. But that's just me !

I'll wait to hear the bass and the song to comment further ;)

make sure there is a clean sound to your recording , Ive suffered with doing lines that I thought
were great only to find some hum or hiss later down the line

Just as an aside ... you may want to look into Radial Engineering, which is known for making various bass processing boxes that are highly respected by pros. They can be used for DI or re-amping, depending on the character you are looking for.
Radialeng.com

GC might be a place to start, they are pretty good about letting people try their stuff in-store, and they have a no-questions-asked return policy for 30 days on nearly everything (mics and software excluded).
It's difficult to suggest anything further without hearing what you have now and what target tone you are looking for. Use the upload a file button at the bottom of your screen, and provide short samples of both.

FWIW

DonnyThompson, post: 450221, member: 46114 wrote: GC might be a place to start, they are pretty good about letting people try their stuff in-store

:whistle:

Man Ive tried my DI boxes and they seem to work at first , and then a gremlin comes and
when I track something decent Im not listening to the buzz ( not a multi tasker )....lol

I connected a wire to screw on the chassis of my desk and alligator clipped it to the piece behind
the bridge on my bass and viola ! , pretty clean sounding . I don't know what is going on
circuit wise but it works . ( Ive put EMG JVX pups on my bass and the instructions said not to earth anything ).
Now at a gig when I touch the pups I get a buzz ( so I put electrical tape over the top end of the pups for now
and it works , and its not doing my head in anymore , for now ....lol)

We don't have GC here in this small city where I live , and its fairly rare that a music store will let you
take stuff out for a test drive .( thank god for the internet and some trusted news
from you guys here about gear etc ) .

The Radial DI looks interesting although a little pricey here . Passive di would be about 200 bucks .

One thing DI can't do is protect the pickups from EM fields in the room. In my case, I know that I get buzz when in front of my mixing space. I just need to turn around about 120degrees and boom no noise anymore !
I am looking at Radial with interest. Can't decide from passive or active... I need to read more about it...

It would be helpful if the OP could give examples of what he has now ( and is t happy with) versus what he would like to have (tone-wise).
There are so many different pres and processors that provide a slew of different tones... McCartney, Johnson, Graham, Jamerson, Lee, Squire, Levin ... that's just to name a slight few.
It's hard to recommend a direction until we know more.