I've said it before and I'll say it again. When it comes to the never ending search for the "best" bass/tone/pedals, etc. I believe we do most of this for ourselves (and maybe you could argue for Jesus). We could all do well enough just plugging a bass into a DI. Maybe add a tuner, just so we're not offering out-of-tune praises. For the most part, nobody except our fellow musicians (if even they) will ever notice our tone. Unless you're doing something flamingly obvious, like using pedals to turn your bass into a synth with fuzz/octave/chorus or something, nobody cares. And even then, the congregation probably wouldn't notice or care where that cool synthy tone was coming from. They're just listening to the music and worshipping. The bass is not out there in front. It's more of a feeling/presence in the low end.
After years of playing at my old church, the sound guy (also a bassist) told me I sounded great last week, like better than I had for the past couple of years. I'm not sure what to attribute it to, because I flipped a bunch of pedals (compressor, preamps, eq) and used a new bass. So it could have been any number of those variables - or all of them - that led to him thinking I sounded better. But I've been playing in church(es) for decades, including that one. And I'm pretty sure that's the ONLY time someone has commented on the quality of my tone. And he only noticed because he's a long-time bass player himself. Nobody else on the team said a word. And that's fine. I don't do it for them. But it's nice to get a complement from time-to-time.
I think the best, strongest tone I could ever get out of my bass would be just plugging it straight into an active DI and letting the sound person do their job. But I started this whole pedalboard search after many churches started going "ampless." I live in a small town with notoriously under qualified sound personnel who I did not trust to EQ/compress my tone properly. So I developed a board that enables me to send the best EQ'd/compressed tone I can to the board. All they have to do is just turn it up. The rest (overdrive, chorus, etc.) is just the icing on the cake. I do it for me, because I think it's fun. The main electric guitar player has been using the same amp and guitar since about 2001. And it still sounds good. The other bassist has one bass he plugs into an amp. The rebel.
I primarily use a nano board with as few effects as possible, so things are not muddying up my tone. Even when everything is bypassed (even with true bypass pedals), there is tone suck just due to having additional pedals and cables in line. Less is more when it comes to good tone, in my opinion. When I use my "big board," (which I actually have yet to do outside of the home, but I put it together for a cover band that never materialized), I use a bypass looper to keep as few effects as possible in the chain.
