i have to chime in here and strongly disagree--- the virus IS good for bass.
in the old analogs (which ive had almost all of) you have to remember some rules when making your virus stand up to them:
-try using one oscillator instead of 2, 3, or unison. i forget this myself, but some of the punchiest fattest synths (303, sh101, monopoly, pro-one) had a single oscillator
-the "punch" that a lot of analogs have is not the filter, but the VCA. many of the old monosynths including the minimoog exhibited the "vca mistake" as bob moog called it--- where the vca would hang up for a couple milliseconds before moving on to the next stage. this is almost the same effect you can get with compression. but my point is dont just turn up the sustain to full and everything else to 0. a little spike = more punch
-yes, turn off the effects. you'll find even tempo sync'ed delay can weaken the hardness of a bassline. bone dry! even distortion can take out the smack of a sound, since it usually reduces dynamic level
-use the envelope filter to give more punch. to simplify this outside of a classroom, 2 envelopes running through each other are twice as punchy as one because of the way it works out mathematically. dont be afraid to use an lfo or other mod source to additionally envelope a sound.
-experiment with the filters. the moog ladder is great for moog bass. if you dont have a recent virus, work with the different saturation levels.
-post processing. theres nothing wrong with recording a virus as audio and processing it with a compressor with a slow attack to get some snap.
best of luck.
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