Another thing I've done is drawn from influences. If a song reminds me of a certain band then I think "how would *insert favourite bassist here* do it". I won't deliberately steal a line but I'll approach it with the type of feel that someone I admire has. I can probably only think of two examples where I've done this but the end result was different to my usual feel and it wasn't totally copycat because I wasn't out to actually impersonate or steal their tone, just thinking in a different headspace.