I only really enjoy playing active basses. 9v active pre is fine. I think the 18v pres are a little over the top sounding. Passive just sounds a little too bland for me. Active gives you a lot of tone shaping powers.... it's definitely a powerful tool to use. It allows you to change your sound around very easily without having to move to the amp to have to change the EQ there. Definitely helpful if you're playing live.

As far as recording, you just gotta go with what you think sounds better. Most of the basses I use are active, so obviously when I go to record I lean towards that. It's what I'm used to and prefer. A lot of engineers prefer certain sounds for certain things. As a session bassist you're expected to have a good Fender P type bass with flats, a good j bass (sadowsky makes a killer jazz bass if you have the cash, haha) and something more agressive sounding. These are all familiar basses for sound engineers and they can easily dial up a good usable tone and get on with it all.