Basses / electronics that play nice with effects

[Toastfuzz]

Did a search, couldn't find this being discussed before. Thought it'd be a fun discussion.

So I've told myself to NOT BUY ANY MORE BASSES!! and be content with the 4 I have in my possession now, 3 active Ibanez' and 1 soon-to-be-passive Carvin jazz. In making the resolution not to buy any more basses, I've replaced that urge with an assortment of effects, playing with various fuzz / od / octavers / filters to get fun and useable sounds for original metal and classic rock covers. We've talked about passive vs. active, and alot of strong opinions have said that fuzz ONLY sounds good with a passive signal, while others (including myself) on the side of effects will work just fine with any bass.

The reason this new topic popped into my head is I've grown to largely try to "set it and forget it" on my pedalboard and control volume, response, and saturation using the controls on my bass. I found at practice the other day that my Russian Big Muff sounded much cleaner and more defined using the solo'd P pickup on my PJ and playing with the 2-band bass/treb pre to adjust the tone. It made me g.a.s. for a passive P bass, which I've never EVER had an urge for, simply as a clean input to drive effects. I'm trying not to buy a P bass, going to wait until my Carvin is finished being modded with the new passive pickups, and see how that sounds.... if passive pu's are truly the holy grail of effect drivers, my actives may be hitting the classifieds. Playing with effects is just too much fun, and I'm at the point where even my clean tone is driven by the VT Bass and sometimes a touch of octave or chorus.

So my question for the boredz, do YOU think any of your basses pump effects better/worse than other axes, or are you in the camp of ANY bass can and should be pumped into effects? Active/passive, P/J/PJ, humbucker variations, etc? I guess since we're on the topic, STRINGS can enter the equation as well.

I'm modding my Carvin totally in mind of driving effects. Medium output J pickups, 1 volume and 1 tone per pickup, series/parallel switch, and .0047 cap switch on the bridge pup (like new and apparently old Rics have.) I'm leaving it open to doing a true Ric-o-Sound mod and have an independent jack for each pup, each running through its own effect chain into its own amp, just to have the most possibilities....possible.