Oh yeah totally; live is another story where bass tone matters even less. The acoustics of most live venues are awful. Even ones that are designed to have excellent acoustics are very bad compared to the recording environment that even bedroom producers enjoy today. Obsessing over bass tone perfection live is basically a lost cause. The sound engineer will do the best they can to balance the mix for the room; in fact as bassist almost anything else you do will be fighting that.
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The funny thing is, I love the tone of both my basses. And there is a nice subjective feeling about this that is undeniable - we like our basses more if we love their tone. And it’s fine to enjoy that.
I’m just not going to waste any more time obsessing about it, from an instrument level, when there’s just so many other ways it will change before the final recording.
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Not everyone can afford (or find) the bass they want to sound like.
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I think this will go here nicely… It is my favorite video of the year on YouTube
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The bass I want to sound like, a ESP E-II Stream, costs thousands. So I bought a used ESP LTD Stream 204, put in the same pickups as the E-II Stream, and total cost around $600. I didn’t get the finish, but I got the sound.
I love how my Stream 204 feels to play, it is the most comfortable bass I have ever picked up to me, and the easiest to play as well. The sound wasn’t perfect, so like I said I went and changed the pickups.
I have a second Stream 204 I picked up used, whose pickups were a bit corroded, so I changed those out. I love how it feels to, but it is not the same as my original Stream for all they are the same model.
Each bass will have its own feel, even within the same model. So yeah, you change pickups. Which is so simple in fact. Why not?
Also I would like a Fralin 50s pickup in a bass. I don’t know of any bsses manufactured with one, so that means buying a bass to put it in.
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I’m not at all too sure about THAT, @sshoihet . . . 
It depends on what the player’s goals are . . . I was into playing 70’s covers and was constantly chasing John Entwistle’s very distinctive tone. 
I finally got it with an active/passive bass and lots of practice and experimentation of course.
If you’re a professional musician, you’ve got your own tone and anyone who is covering YOU and your band is trying to find it. 
Cheers
Joe
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agree.
I’ve found pros in all camps. I spent a bit of time with Bobby Vega (Tower of Power, Sly and the Family Stone, Etta James) and he was insane about his tone.
His pickups, the cable he used, the amps the speaker - every piece in the chain was as important to him as every other part.
There are definitely pros who show up and use whatever, but never underestimate musicians of all levels ability to become massive tone nerds.
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I know that Peter Hook was so in love with the feel and tone combination of his BB1200S that he bought the last seven he could find when Yamaha discontinued them.
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Im definitely sure about it, most bass players are not obsessed with chasing tone. Most bass players have low end amps and don’t even use pedals. Even guitar players who more commonly modify their tone, mostly do not chase tone. You buy a mustang or katana amp, you load up a profile and you play something that sounds pretty close and for the vast majority of things on bass, it matters even less.
Playing covers and obsessively trying to sound like players with a very distinctive tone just isn’t the goal for most people. Most people don’t have the time or money to change pickups, buy different strings, amps or pedals nor do they care that much. At best they buy a sansamp or a multifx pedal and get something close enough.
Cover bands are “pro” musicians so no, not every one of them has their “own” tone that someone else is going to copy. I’ve heard lots of cover bands who didn’t try to exactly copy the tone of the original artists.
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I think a lot of players would be more inclined to focus on two areas for bass tone:
1)Pick vs fingers
2)Flatwound vs roundwound strings
These are also the absolute cheapest things one can do to change the sound of an existing bass, aside from EQ on the amp you already have
Speaking of, now I want to see if I can get the EQ frequencies and cut/boost of various popular bass amps and put them into a speadsheet to compare them 
And basses… probably hard to come by this info if it’s not in some sort of user manual. Lots of emails to companies whose customer service probably has no idea, or won’t answer that question. Hmm…
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I know very very well hear isn’t the answer.
I just love to buy crap.
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Any number in the universe that can be contemplated is far less than this.
Nope. Never have. And doubt I will. B7K is another story though.
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I’ve heard and read a lot of interviews with bass players that work with superstar A or B or C and how they have to use one tone for A and another for B etc. so I don’t think your statement is accurate at all. Gail Ann Dorsey bring one of them.
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I’m running my B7K into a flat EQ amp 
I have a touch of bass on it, a minor cut in low and high mids, and a slight treble boost on it. My C-5 GT has a slight bass boost and treble cut on it.
I tell myself this is all due to them altering different frequencies. I kinda want to upgrade my B7K to a V2 but that’s a third the price of the Exponent 500 amp I want
Either way, I have a thicc, but articulate low end, good presence, and smooth highs that aren’t some shrill banshee wailing off the frets. I can still get some good snap and pop off them when playing aggressively, though, too.
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I think the B7K EQ is Devine. I (like you) use a touch of this, tweak of that. Magic.
I imagine it’s the “Darkglass EQ” setting on the new amp, too, or I sure hope it is. I assume that between that and the built-in B3K I can get the same sort of sound, but also with a 6-band EQ, or I can play with the Vintage drive, or the Alpha-Omicron, or “Chinchilla” which is a Rat emulation. I can’t wait.
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Frequency responses for amps are pretty easy to google. I do it all the time.
Darkglass preamps almost always add a big mids scoop (when flat). It turns out you might like the scooped sound. Most people do.
The B3K does a narrow-but-deep cut around 300-350Hz from what a quick, not-too-deep search found. There’s also an upper mids bump
That “upper mids” bump is actually way up in the treble, centered at 2kHz. Around 5 times the frequency of the highest note on a 24-fret G string.
That’s your Darkglass Clank 
For comparison, 20th fret on the high E string of a guitar is 1kHz.
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