I agree with Higgie. In fact, I set the gain on mine at just above zero and just use the drive to get the sound I'm after. This doesn't add grit as you might expect, it tightens up the bass and treble in rather a nice way. Also, even though I have an active bass, I do not engage the -10db button ahead of the preamp.
Three years ago I had a Stingray/Th500/TKS 115 rig and have tried various other combinations of bass and rig in the interim only to be back to exactly the same rig in 2017, and very happy with it too.