Pods are not trash. Do they replace a great collection of boutique amps and speakers?? No. Are they very useable and capable of producing a wide variety of tones?? Yes. You can use them to get some really unique sounds. You might also try some stomp boxes. I use a big muff pi distortion on bass for some very interesting sounds.

Are you looking for distortion, modulation, reverb, or all of the above? What's your budget?

Wes

Mostly all of the above, I'll sacrifice distortion for some better Reverb and chorus effects. My budget is about 300 dollars, I'm kinda broke right now. I just want something that will give my bass some extra tones without buying a new guitar or amp.

I have had almost every frinckin bass pedal on the planet. I say get yourself a SansAmp DI, they make a rackmounted version and a pedal. I have the pedal, I love it!
The SansAmp is AWESOME and for the money (I think they are still around $220) they ARE the best pedal you can get for around $200. I also would suggest getting a T.C. electronic chorus/flanger pedal. The T.C. will pass all of your lower freq.
That's the main issue is using a product that is rated from 20 Hz - 20k Hz. Or atleast somewhere close to that. The Big Muff Pie is sweet also. But I have since upgraded to the Hughes & Kettner Tube Factor.
Morley wah's sound great on bass. And are really nice wah pedals. IMO
All of the pedals I mentioned WILL pass all your lower register from your bass guitar.
Do yourself a favor and goto a local music store with your bass and plug into them and try 'em out.
Let me know.
By the way here's my setup

After having dozens of effects pedals, I got the best one of all... a cable that goes straight from my bass to the amp! Never could get the effects working for me, hope your results are better!

After having dozens of effects pedals, I got the best one of all... a cable that goes straight from my bass to the amp!

i agree with that. the bass effects that work for me are compression and chorus . never could understand reverb on a bass and why players would want that when what you should be chasing is a tight gereat bass sound. wah on bass sounds good i must admit though.
Sans simulator is a good idea.

bass can also sound great with a bit of the 'ol flanger in there. not to much . in my bas playing days I always avoided it but I can see that a lot of up and comiing players tend to go for that type of thing.

Yeah, well I wasn't looking for a huge effect difference. I know it is hard to put effects on the low end sound of a bass and make it sound good. More or less, I want something to give it a different punch so thanks for the input.

Boss ME-50B. Almost all of the classic Boss stompboxes (delay, chorus, overdrive, wah, EQ, etc.) stuffed into one analog box and it streets at $295.

It doesn't have a balanced out but if you use a DI or instrument in that shouldn't matter.

A lot of bassists like it better than its more expensive digital modeling version, the GT6B.

With respect to the Sans Amp Bass Driver, I think it's overrated. I sold mine. It was noisy, and gave me a blurry, indistinct sound. It is really great for live use, but IMHO not the best solution for recording. YMMV

I ended up replacing it with a Peavey MAX tube bass preamp. I have now started bass tracking through the Focusrite TrakMaster and find that to be the best solution for me so far.

I'm going to take delivery soon of an ART Pro MPA, and I'm interested in tracking bass with that too.

I thought of something else. For recording, you might consider a Boss SE-50 multi-effects. It is very well thought of as a good "swiss army knife" effects box. It might not be the last thing in transparency and audio fidelity for all instruments, but good enough for bass guitar.

What about the PH-3 Phase Shifter? Would that give it a cool sound or would that muddy up the sound on the bass?

I'm correcting myself from my previous post. From another forum I have found out that the ME50B is digital circuitry, not analog like the individual Boss pedals it is supposed to replace for many of its effects.

im a bass player and recently picked up the boss gt-6b. a litlle pricey but absolutely great tone. all boss effects with some added. plus a nice little s/pdif out for DI (although it only spits out 44.1) i use it live and in the studio, simply the best multi effects processor i have ever had.