i have no idea about hardware. wait for class an them. there is a serious reason debate. reason has many virtual instruments that will do the job if you knock your midi controller octave down. i once yearned for bass, and now {with reason} bass is not an issue.
for a cheap option the novation bass station is good. Get the original one it is analog. You can get most analog type bass synth sounds out of this module
trilogy looks fucking awesome...especially if you have weighted or semi weighted keys on your keyboard, because you can change velocity and it changes whether the bass is slapped, plucked, strummed whatever.....and it has staccato on the higher keys so you can hit the same note twice and you dont get the machine gun effect, it will actually kill the vibration of the second strike of that note, like it would with a real bass
For a synth bass I like the triton... It depends on what type of bass your going for, That pete rockish sampled bass or that Dirty south Get Low Bass!! But, I think the best basses I've ever used were t he one's I sampled...
lol yeah the micro korg is amazin. takes alot of programming though and i often feel they need a lot of filtering eqing and stuff cos sumtimes they're too thin on the ground. I actually adore my fantom X8, the sounds are incredible, there are soooo many and all so versatile!!!, natural bass and synth bass but then the cost of the actual keyboard is a bomb! lol
I mean i will sample a low bass tone, filter it, EQ it, compress it and make my own full bass sound, then i set sustain points, load it in my mpc and use the autochromatic function to spread it acrocss the keys