How you put a bass pedal to use is completely up to you and depends on the arrangement you play in. In most band setups, bass guitars hold down the rhythm and low end, compared to the acoustic or electric guitar melody makers. Therefore, the pedals are mainly used to prop up the quality of your tone and focus the frequencies you’re using. In other circumstances, you might want to put your instrument front and centre with bigger, expansive effects.
Using bass pedals in a practical sense is super simple. To set up a stompbox, simply plug your bass into the pedal and plug another cable into your amp from the output jack. If you have more than one pedal, you’ll want to link them up with shorter patch cables.
Most of the time, this method can be applied before the sound signal even reaches the amp. There are some bass amps, however, that contain effects loops. These are extremely handy as you can place all of your wacky modulated or time-based effects in between the preamp and power amp stages in order to get a cleaner, defined sound.