actually i use sonar6, compress ko yun bass ko using (i dont know if youre familiar with this) sonitus, setting ko is ratio = 9, attack 5.5ms, release 445ms, threshold -15 to - 20. based sa preset with little tweak. honestly di ko pa rin gets yun setting ng attack and release (i understand the theory, but not how it translate to actual sound)
sa mix, ok na rin for me, and yeah I start with kick and bass. but the volume (not peak but i guess rms) after the mix is relatively low
after the mix, i use wavelab to add more volume (peak master yun name ng plugin), the problem of bass becomes evident after taasan ang volume, so i need to use a multiband compressor and lessen the lows, so yun bass ay humihina at di na makahinga
is this info helpful? ah and another thing, wala akong monitors ngayon, so i use earphones (shure ec2) to mix, i know thats a big no no but i use what i have 
thanks guys
ok. so to start things off, I'll try to explain a bit of the concept about attack and release as simply as I can. i notice that your soundclick profile shows you holding a Les Paul type guitar so i guess you are a guitar player? think of "attack" as the presence of your bass or guitar tone, the more attack you have the more upfront, sharp and obvious your guitar picking will be. usually, I try and use attack setting sparingly when I pick with my fingers and I dial it in to taste when I record using a pick because you don't want the pick sound to stand out too much in the mix.
"Release" is a compressor control that is meant to shape the tail end of your guitar signal passing through the compressor. Notice that as you increase the release setting, the signal doesn't chop off as much as setting the compressor release setting close to zero. The idea when using a compressor is that you want the compressed signal to trail off naturally so your signal sounds solid, consistent without introducing too many transients that may make it onto your recording. Reverb works kinda like the same way when guitarists say something like,"The reverb sounds really natural because my picked notes naturally die off and they don't sound lopped off at the end."
As far as the Sonitus settings go, try the following settings and play around with them: set the ratio to 2:1, attack to 5, release to 1000ms, threshold at -10 to -5. I don't know how the ratio works with Sonitus but I suspect that your high setting is part of the problem because you are essentially clamping down on your bass signal and treating it like it is a drum signal; a 9:1 ratio is way to high.
When you are recording and mixing your different instruments, try and record them at a volume that is as
close to 0db
without clipping. This is very important because you want to record at a usable volume. This way, you will have more than enough headroom to mix
lower through your master fader because your instruments were recorded hot enough. If you record guitars loud shy of clipping, you will take advantage of all the nuances of the guitar signal and be able to avoid boosting the signal in post-processing. Remember that you want to have the characteristics of the bass, the preamp and your playing to come through with as less sculpting as possible; a good recording to begin with is always better than excessive engineering in my book. I always try and shoot for a prime performance and setting before recording because there is nothing worse than trying to doctor a good bass tone using Eqs and all the plugins in the world.
The way I record bass is usually through the blending of 2 signals, a miked signal and a DI signal. both signals pass through two different hardware pres and compressors into 2 channels on PT HD or Cubase and then a blend gets mixed into a new bus channel where I apply my EQ and other effects.
hope this helps. experiment with different settings and see what you get.
