Bass level in music mixing is sometimes a conundrum: how loud or soft, where and on what particular notes? I found that I always placed Bass Rider before any other processor plug-ins. Bass Rider can make tremendous changes in level if you have to deal with an overly dynamic track coming from a raucous bass amp poorly recorded at a live show.

Bass Rider has a set of Range controls that constrain (set) the upper and lower limits of the Rider fader that moves and changes level predicated upon instantaneous note-by-note loudness. The plug-in's Sensitivity control, Response Time (Fast or Slow) switch and the two Ignore controls called Spill and Artifacts tailor operation conditioned on the sound qualities of the particular bass instrument and the musician's performance. Here for novice users, the plug-in's default settings are excellent for starting out.

Octave jumps or thumb pops are handled well by BR so they don't tend to leap out as far above the mix's average level if you prefer. These kinds of level changes are beyond the control of reasonable compressor settings I would use if your mix requires a smooth and natural sounding bass.