I've been servicing basses and guitars since 2016 and had ben dealing with about 25-30 fine instruments a year.   It's a fun adventure since I got into the world of fancy basses.  and I've tried many many finest stuffs that's avaialble in the market out there.    Learning how these instruments work, how they were made, why things were done in these particular way had made me understand more about the instrument, and also understand about myself.   You don't have to be a killer player or whoever to be an expert.  Amount of love and time you put into them matter, paying attention to the details matters, and of course trying things out in different scenerio and setups matters if you want to have a fair and honest opinion.   I'm lucky enough to play most of the stuffs I have in my basement, in rehearsals and also gigs in various sizes.   

Anyways, depends on the situation, I don't always have the luxury of spending lots time with each of them ..  I try my best to set things up to the way I like them .   I believe all instruments have their potential disregard their price tag.  You just need to find the right combination of things and the right setup for each of them .  It all varies and no 1 formula works.    I try my best to find the optimistic setup, sometimes it takes 2-3 days and sometimes it takes week or so of continously tweaking.   I'm hoping the things I learnt from the instruments and people I worked with through out the years can make each of them that's easy enough to play and sounding balanced and as open as they can be.    I believe all the instruments I worked on especially basses are gig ready the moment things get passed on to the next person, and I'm hoping the way I set things up can make the next player happy.   

Well, of course , I try to do a little test drive to capture each of them before they leave my bench.   Since mid-late 2017, I've settled with a recording rig that works quiet well and the setup has been the same ever since for a consistentcy result between my videos.  

Here is the signal chain:
I stated with my tecamp puma 900 DI out into the apogee jam 96k into my iphone,  everything on the amp goes flat , everything.   I monitor through my bass cabs most of the time .  and in early 2019, I've completed my ultimate bass rig with the bergantino b|amp, the ref112 and ref210 cabs.  

Sound from the Jam+ is pretty similar to what I hear via headphone, which is a pretty flat and clean di signal .  the cab feels way better to be honest.  Each bass is tweaked to the right gain stage before taping, and sometime the level might varie from bass to bass ..  you'll need to match the volume according for a fair comparison. 

Cheers!
treeeeee