iophant

I have been producing dance music for over decade, psy trance mainly. I recently bought an electroacoustic bass to help me writing better bass lines. now i would like to play my bass lines live but i'm not very aware of the gear available to make a bass guitar sound like a synth. i'm aware of the roland gr-20 but it seems to sound quite generic, also it's not bass specific. a friend of mine uses a variety of pedals and the sound seems to deteriorate and become duller at every step. when designing a bass i tend to use a sawtooth as the basis of it and i found the less fxs i add the better. has anyone gone this path? any suggestions?