Kev 6string:
I disagree entirely. Music comes from the musician not the effects, bass, amp, whatever.. A good musician knows how/when to use effects and it makes them sound even more amazing...
Fingers are over-rated. Make it a point to be able to play anything with anything... Sometimes when you're trying to please people paying you money for your talents in the studio, sometimes you have to use a pick, slap, or something to please them... The customer is always right. If you're some "pedestal purist" that thinks their fingers are the end-all-be-all, you'll find the door quickly or be limited to a few types of music. If you spent some money getting to the chosen studio, you're out that money... Sometimes you can't even use your own bass. They want a certain sound or they don't like yours you're going to be using what they give you.
One case comes to mind where a band's bassist quit before they got a really good quality recording. He used a bic lighter as a kind of "blackjack" on the strings to amazing effect. When I went in to do the tracks I could not get that sound no matter what I used. So I had to learn how to do that "blackjack" style with a bit of help from the guitarist who knew the basics on how it worked. If I wouldn't have had skill using a pick, I wouldn't have been able to do that and I would have missed out on some really good money.
I use an auto Q, overdrive, compressor, sonic maximizer, 5-band parametric, and a sansamp. Love them all. Granted some aren't "effects" in most peoples eyes, but they effect the signal in some way so they literally are.
I have yet to use them in the studio though. I use them mostly to make a live show more interesting. When you play every weekend things can get boring quick, especially for any fans that come out and see you time and time again. The best phrase I've ever heard was from a guitarist. "If you're only playing to please yourself, you'll be playing with yourself a lot." The fact it came out of a guitarist's mouth made it one of those moments that I'll never forget, lol