Certainly listening to good mixes is useful. I have a good CD collection, and I study songs in my collection regularly.

Jeff Evans
 
(TIP) Turn the bass off completely and listen to your track for 10 minutes without bass. Then if you have a small mono speaker listen through that at low volume and slowly bring the bass back in and stop where you think it is a nice level. It will be lower than where it is now.
 

I use this technique (or similar) a lot, it is so useful.  I always end up with the bass much lower when I do this on my small mono monitor (an Auratone clone), but sits so much better in the mix when I go back to my mains.  I highly recommend it.

Rimshot, here's my opinion for what it's worth.
 
There are no starting points to use because of so many factors man.
 
1. The bass used
2. The player and how they execute (meaning, how hard the pull, fretting, cleanliness, sloppiness etc)
3. Pick, felt pick, fingers or pop/slap
4. The action of the bass
5. The pick-up height
6. Is the sound driven like Dean's or smooth like Jeff's
7. Amount of eq used (example, more low end will require more compression the same as more high end percussiveness. The more smooth and neutral, the less compression)
 
All the above stuff will dictate how to set your compressor. For someone that knows how to play, you'll need less compression. For example, in Jeff's piece, I'd guess the ratio is probably around 3:1 taking a wild guess. You can tell the bass sound is beautiful and what *I* personally strive for in my bass tones. No drive, it's clean, it's precise and there is enough percussiveness in the tone as well as good low end that works with the kick drum. (excellent mix Jeff)
 
In a sound like Dean's, the drive usually adds some compression to the sound so you may not need much...however, some feel the need to squash the sound good for effects purposes. I personally do not like driven bass sounds like that because to me, they just sound un-natural and like a bass synth. That's no offense to Dean...it's just not a bass sound I like when people come to me and go for something like that. It is a common sound of "today" though...but the compression used will depend on how you (Rimshot) decide to drive it. That said, he's nailed the "now" bass sound and has done it well to where it's not sub low and a problem child. (Well done Dean.)
 
Now, if we had a pop/slap type song going on, everything in the game changes. You will use way different attack, release, threshold and ratios on a bass like that. There is so much force on a pop/slap that the eq plays a vital role in the outcome as well as the compressor. So as you can see, it's near impossible to even have a starting point for any of this because there are just so many variables that make up a bass sound. It's just one of those instruments that is a per experience type of deal in my opinion, Rimshot. Best of luck.
 
-Danny

Though, just to show how things go around and around, I have nothing to do with the modern sound at all. To me, over-driven bass is something that I like due to the fact that some of the bands I like, like Yes, The Who, Rush, Jefferson Airplane, etc... often used over-driven bass tones. So I was coming at it more from that direction, though of course in a somewhat more modern vein in terms of the overall production.
 
They were also getting it 'naturally' through an amp (well, Geddy often used things like Sansamps, but still an analog thing.) In my case I'm using a Blackfinger compressor pedal which also has a pre-amp section that you can overdrive. So it is 'natural' distortion, not something done in the box or digitally, but it's not the kind of highly overdriven amp tone that requires no compression. It's more of a slight overdrive that mostly just fuzzes up the initial impact (the bit sufficiently high to get the most overdrive.)
 
Anyway, it's not the sort that would completely flatten out the sound and require no compression. The compressor was working pretty hard also, but it's not a super-fast compressor, at least not in the mode I had it in. Between the softening of the impact due to overdrive and the compressor, it's holding the initial peak down pretty heavily. If I hadn't done that, I'd probably have ended up doing something a lot more unnatural, i.e. ducking the bass via side chain or something. This way it happens naturally that the kick is not interfered with, and I get the long but not crazy long tail I want.
 
The raw tone was much more grindy and nasty, having a lot of that 400 to 800'ish range fuzz that makes the difference between a cleaner distortion and a nastier distortion. I EQ'd a fair bit of that out since I wasn't going for that sort of tone, though it could be quite appropriate for something else.
 

Just want to mention something about synth bass. There is that type of synth bass that has every note plucked at a precise volume with each ADSR being exact etc. Filter ADSR or attack transient the same for every note. But not all synth bases are like that though. The other is the type of bass sound with huge dynamics. I have a new Kurzweil synth with the most amazing bass sounds (electric and synth bases) and massive dynamic ranges have been programmed in and the sound can now continually change depending on how hard you hit the keys. All very exciting to play so synth sounds can go into live bass playing territory now that is all I am saying. (dynamically at least) The good thing about synth programming like that is you can create the compression within the sound itself by limiting ranges here and there. Editing note velocities is important here too.
 
Heavily compressed bass sounds can have a form of repetition to them in terms of dynamics. But that sometimes works really well too in the Aggressive Hip Hop Dubstep bass drops concept! That sort of sound can sit really well into a hard full on mix. I find automating heavily compressed bass sounds can work very well too.
 
 

I was a bass player back in they day in bands, I have a couple of really nice basses that I track with now in my studio. My favorite is to run my Warwick fretless thumb bass, through a Universal Audio LA-610 pre-amp, with some light compression on the way in, and then I use some plugs depending on the song.
 
1. Izotope Alloy, they have some nice bass presets.


2. Voxengo LF Max Punch. 
 
I've had good success with these, but there's a million ways to skin this cat. There's something primal about playing that bass in instead of programming it ;-)

I made some good progress mixing my latest song today. I set the compressor at 4.1 and did not push it hard at all. I then put a limiter after it and was much happier with the punch.
I have been squeezing it way too much while playing live bass.
Thanks all for your great input. It helps.
Listen to my new song and tell me what you think.
https://soundcloud.com/ji...en-i-will-sing-for-you


Rimshot

Rimshot
I made some good progress mixing my latest song today. I set the compressor at 4.1 and did not push it hard at all. I then put a limiter after it and was much happier with the punch.
I have been squeezing it way too much while playing live bass.
Thanks all for your great input. It helps.
Listen to my new song and tell me what you think.
https://soundcloud.com/ji...en-i-will-sing-for-you


Rimshot

That sounds pretty good Rimshot! Just subjective here...but you could probably get away with a little percussive "clack" (not much, but just a little so the bass breathes a little more) from 2-3k. A  3dB boost at 2.5k would probably be perfect just so you hear a little more tonality instead of just the low end. But that's definitely a good bass sound and you've gone in the right direction in my opinion. :)
 
-Danny

Hi Danny. Much thanks for the listen. I will try that.

Jimmy