Thanks for all the great advice everyone! What started this is, I watched the recent Pensado's Place with Tchad Blake. In it, he said he hasn't mic'd up a bass amp for years. He records all his basses direct in thru a Sansamp Bass Direct. In fact, he sang the praises of his Sansamp highly!
So, I thought, "I'll buy me one of those". Then, I decided to see what other folks are using so, I made this post.
Bottom line, I'm looking for a direct recorded bass sound that sounds well recorded/produced.
Typically, I record bluesy rock/indie/alt stuff.
I've tried the high impedance D.I. inputs on Focusrite ISA One and Presonus Eureka, and an ART MPA Pro II, as well as a plain old direct box from ART. I've also tried it plugged right into my Yamaha RM-800 mixer. Any/all of these are not 'BAD". I would just like to find something that gives an already produced sound without having to add a bunch of additional compression, EQ, etc. I suppose I could just record a dry, D.I. then add and amp sim after the fact but, would rather get it all in one shot, on the way in, with no latency to have to deal with.
As far as the players I record, I'd say I've been very fortunate to only have players in the very good to excellent range (so far).

As a guitarist who also plays and records bass I bought the Pod X3 a few years ago as I could use it live as well as in the studio and it has some really good bass amp sims which I much preferred to software options because latency for me was still an issue.
 
I've not tried the bass pod XT but it can only be better than my pod X3 which I think is excellent.
Looking on their site it seems they don't have a replacement for the bass pod so you'd probably have to get a second
hand one. The Pod X3 has hardly come down in price and if anything it's gone up which might be something to do with their abandoning of the bass pod ?
 
Steve

DI Bass rocks.... both stand alone and mixed together with a amped track.  There were loads of suggestions about how to DI but if you want to track without creating a thunder storm in you home studio, then the idea of using an amp sim comes into play as mentioned.  May I suggest, that a DI'ed sound going thru a IR of a bass cabinet with or without an amp sim can yield fantastic results.  But as Craig says, you need to make sure your setup and playing is quite good so that you don't kill the mix... nothing like sloppy bass lines to kill a groove.
 
Good luck in your pursuits.
 
Jim

Rodreb, I understand what you are saying about a ready to go bass sound right out of the box. I think I can speak for all of us when I say there is no such beast that exists. Any instrument, percussion, keys, guitars, bass, etc. always will have to be tweaked here and there to get it to fit the bill for the song at hand. What I would suggest is to look at the choices, make the one YOU feel best suits your needs, and make as many presets of your own, fitting the material you do. You don't know how many hours and sometimes days it takes in the studio to get that killer tone you've hunted for just for that one song. Then the next song, there you are changing instruments, twiddling knobs, moving mics, just to fit the next song.
I have probably a dozen presets to start me off in the GK amp plug. They are just starting points. I still might have to adjust the mids or top end. Whoops, too much bottom!
Don't get too mired down in the details. Get something that sounds as good and you can live with and continue on with the writing. You hear that one phrase a lot amongst musicians! "I can live with it!" Good Luck!

Bandso, I can't tell if they changed anything in the sound engine in the 64 bit GK plug. It seems to be much better. Especially in the top end. I have always loved the sound of GK bass amps as well. I had a bass player in my band once that ran two GKs with a Rickenbacker 4001! What a wall of sound that was.

FWIW, I've bought a lot of different DI's for recording Bass.

• Reddi
• U5
• BDDI
• RBI
• RPM
• Bass Pod
• Pod HD500
• Bass V-Amp Pro
• B3

 
Out of those units, only two remain.
The Avalon U5 and the Zoom B3.
 
I wanted to like the Reddi... as many folks absolutely rave about it.
Perhaps mine was defective, but (to me) it didn't sound anything like a B15.
My unit was a little prone to noise.  Especially bad when used with a Ric 4003 that was poorly shielded.
 
The SansAmp units all had a nice "grind"... but the dynamics were a bit too squashed.
The BDDI and RBI have a tendency to sound pretty "clacky" emphasizing the upper mids.
The RPM has a ton of gain on hand.  You can get crazy with the distortion.
You can quickly get decent sounding bass with any of the SansAmp units.
Although super convenient and low cost, the SansAmp units (IMO) produced pretty decent but not great results.
 
The POD units are certainly convenient and low cost.
Many of the amp/cab combinations sound muffled or lack articulation (especially the Bass POD).  Woof!
Granted, there's not a lot of top-end in a mic'd bass cab, but there's still definition/articulation.
The POD HD500's Ampeg model was IMO the best of the bunch.
I'd opt for SanAmp units over the POD range.
 
The Avalon U5 is built like a tank.
The sound is what you'd expect.
Clean, clear... and a little "larger" sound than using a Radial DI.  Guess you could describe it as "hi fi"
I don't use the onboard "tone shaping" preset EQ settings.
The U5 lets the character of the bass come thru.  It's enhanced slightly (similar to using a Neve preamp - larger but the basic tone isn't changed).  The U5 won't produce an "amped up" Ampeg type of sound.
The cost of the U5 is below the Reddi... and a bit more than the rest.
If you're going to use AmpSim plugins, IMO the U5 is your best DI option.
 
Of all the Amp Modeling units that I've owned, the inexpensive Zoom B3 is by far my favorite.
I've mentioned this before, but there's a Bassman 300 model in there that's absolutely fantastic.
I owned a SVT Classic (80-lb head) strickly for recording.  Using the Zoom and tweaking that Bassman 300 model, I compared results side-by-side with the SVT Classic/mic'd cab.  The Bassman 300 model yields results that sound so good... I decided to sell the SVT.  You can get a little dirt/grind... and the tone is balanced, full, articulate.
I'm into classic-rock bass tone... and this is it.
For a low cost Bass recording option, you can't beat the Zoom B3
 
 
 
 

The Reddi is designed around a tube that retails for approximately $1.25 each. You can get them for $1.00 if you take an extra moment to look for a deal. 
 
:-)
 
It's crazy that the designers would put so much money into the two relatively massive transformers that are in that thing and then drop a cheap as dirt, cold war surplus tube in to it so it can make noise. I'm not much for idea that tube swapping as an upgrade is a given, but the REDDI seems to be begging for an opportunity to have a better tube stuck in it.
 
best regards,
mike
 
 
edit grammar

Mike, 
 
I may grab another Reddi... and try swapping out that tube.
Everyone raves about that unit...
 

I've been getting a surprisingly good direct sound from my Focusrite Multi-In Inst. setting and Squier P-Bass. Not sure if there is is something special going on in the interface for Hi-Z but just spicing the line signal up with some ProChannel gack is really working out well for me these days.
 
Try some clone layering. One track for low end and body. Another for grit and attack. I used to use a third but I'm not even doing that anymore. Compression and saturation modules with some EQ panned up the middle.
 
I still want to get the MarkII Bass plug from Overloud though.

One more quick tip. You may want to take the sound directly from the "preamp out" or XLR send of a real bass head. A GK400RB or an AMPEG SVT is heavenly for this type of direct recording but it will need some effects love once it gets into the DAW.
However considering you want to have a hot rod sound going straight in, then I'd say the bass pod is the way to go as you get many amp/cab options, eq, compression, etc..