Get in son, my second favourite Stranglers album, what a bass player, what a band, what an album, so much so I struggled to choose my ‘I agree with you’ track...
It took me decades to get the sound I wanted by going direct into amplification, it was never quite what I was after. I didn't want to start using pedals until I was happy with my core tone before I applied any trickery. Now I have found the perfect amplification set up for me, one I'm perfectly happy to use with nothing in the signal chain (bass > FRFR speaker) I have started using a HX Stomp, but as I use acoustic basses the Stomp is for really subtle tweaks. I think you need to be really happy with that uncoloured sound first.