My advice is turn down the LF eq on your bass, or on your board. this will essentially give you a ton of headroom, cause it's the very LF signal that sends everything into the red. You won't be masking other sounds as much, you'll stand out more in the mix and it'll be much more even. Yes, this sounds simplistic and maybe even counterproductive, but try it first. THEN, use the compressor if you still need to. 4:1 ratio, fairly fast attack and fast release, seems to be standard for bass if I remember correctly. Unless you're slapping/popping, then too fast an attack may dull things like was mentioned above.
The other thing to consider (besides the eveness of your own playing style) is the height of the pickups. You may be able to solve everything by simply lowering your pickups a bit on the E-string side. You can change the sound of your bass quite drastically with some pretty subtle adjustments. Raising the strings does same thing, but a high action is usually not desirable, of course.
[This message has been edited by acidjazz (edited 09-30-1999).]
[This message has been edited by acidjazz (edited 09-30-1999).]