Whatever works is the best - it's all smoke and mirrors.
 
I was tracking a cover for my wife last night, nothing too fancy, just an early demo. Now, so far, all my attempts at recording bass left me rather disappointed. Whether it was through the POD HD or Amplitube SVX or any other plug-in, it just sounded lame. I blamed it in part on the instrument - my wife's cheap Squier Bronco, with its odd one single coil pick up. But I still believed that I should have been able to work something out of it.
 
So last night when the time came to lay down the bass track, I just didn't feel like tweaking emulations to no avail - I plugged direct into one of my little practice amp and hooked the headphones output to my audio interface. Well, what do you know... The crappy bass came to life, and the whole thing sounded pretty ballsy.
 
So thanks to this cheap little Fender guy, which I never thought I'd actually use to track anything...
 

 

I'm actually thinking of tracking some guitar with my little Vox headphone amp, it sounds that awesome.

I'm actually thinking of tracking some guitar with my little Vox headphone amp, it sounds that awesome.

I recorded my son doing a solo on one of those battery powered Marshall 4" jobbies with a SM57. Worked for the song. 

Didn't someone once say "If it sounds good, it is good?" 

I believe that I've heard that one to Craig. :-)

It is all smoke and mirrors.....
 
The only thing that matters is what it sounds like in the mix. 
 
And yes, I have heard some pretty awesome sounding bass and guitar tone on some mixes here through the years, that the individual said was recorded on a cheap little practice amp with a tiny 4" speaker or some other weird thing...
 
whatever works.   I prefer the hardware solution most often. Mic a small amp or my POD2 plugged into the interface.

I've been tracking with Tech 21 VT Bass. I'm very happy with the sound. But keep this in mind when recording bass, Cut the low end when tracking. Go for a more rounder tone. You can add the low end back during mixing. You will be very happy as to how versital the tone will be without all that thickness. This is why mic-ing a smaller 10 inch speaker or less sounds so good. Less is more with bass.

Hi,
 
Honestly? My biggest disappointment, might just be that while playing/practicing the bass, I have never found a sound that was satisfying, and I do not know what to do or turn to, other than trial and error.
 
I'm thinking that having a reasonable amp would help, and I will probably answer all that in the next couple of months, but still ... a bit strange.

I nearly always high cut the bejesus out of bass, sometimes up to 150Hz or so - I can never understand how in almost every mixing tutorial I've watched, they're always making dainty little cuts at 30-40Hz at which I can't even tell the difference. I hate boomy bass and would much rather keep things clean down there and concentrate on bringing the bass's higher frequencies out.