Snaxocaster wrote: Back to the original post for a moment: I generally take two mics and a DI, the DI being totally clean before the amp, using the DI box as a splitter. I've either got the dirt on from the start or reamp the DI track through an amp + pedals.
I never double-track bass like you would heavy rock/metal rhythm. A second performance of bass, I've tracked as an effect, basically, playing a different part over the main bass line. The easiest way to hugeify bass is to make it huge from the beginning and cut it down to taste.
Stereo bass is a waste of time, again, except as an effect. The bridge of Garda's Graphite has stereo room mics on the bass guitar. There's six tracks of bass (incidentally, all miced. The clean DI is muted) on that song, but they're all taken from one take. Two are effect reamps and two are the room mics acting as a reverb.
I mostly prefer miced bass tracks to DI, for what it's worth. DI + duplicate track + hp/dirt seems to be the go-to method for current metal though and will give you That Sound.
I also hit the bass on the way in with a hardware compressor, at least if it's played clean-ish. Not too much, but enough to smooth it a bit and still have punch. A light touch with the compressor will bring up the sustain and still let you have attack without the occasional annoying transient spike bass is more prone to than guitar. The dirtier the bass, the less- if at all- I compress. No need to compress as supersquarewavefuzzbuzzsaw bass. It is compression incarnate.
Re: mixing, really, what to cut from the bass and what to cut from the kick depends entirely on your bass and kick sounds. Sometimes doing the "wrong" thing like dumping 150hz from the kick will both clear up the kick and make the bass cut through a lot better. (I did this on the aforementioned song.) All depends on what you're working with. | 
