One thing to note is that the tighter the transients, the more impactive the rhythm section will be. In recent years it has become common practice to align the drums and even bass to the grid. However, it is incredibly gratifying to witness an amazing group of musicians performing this stuff in real time.
Either way, ensuring that the bass and kick have been time-aligned prior to mixing is imperative.
Start by soloing the kick drum. Now listen to innate characteristics of the instrument. The real aesthetic balance here is determining how to retain as much character from the instrument, while allowing it to "fit" into the mix. This takes some experience in mixing, but the more you do it the better you will become.
I tend to begin by rolling off the low sub frequencies from the kick. Rolling off, at say, 40Hz can reduce the level of sub frequency that can cause buildup later. It is much easier to remove it and add it back later.
Now reduce the level of frequencies between 250 to 300Hz. This will remove much of the mud and murkiness and will reveal more of the drum's depth.
You may want to increase the top end at between 5 to 8kHz. This will add both presence and accentuate the attack of the beat.
I typically add a noise gate after the EQ. I do this usually when the kick hits have not been edited prior to mixing. Ordinarily I would elect to edit the kick hits so that there is no bleed between the beats.
I am quite fond of adding the Waves TransX plug-in after the Eq or gate. It tends to give me more control over the envelope of the transient. I can shape it to have a quick attack and short decay. Sometimes, overdoing it with this plug-in allows me to get more creative with the compressor I will add afterwards.
With the compressor I like to ensure that I can maintain enough transient response and punch, while taming the amount of resonance between the notes. Obviously, much of this is dependent upon the tempo of the song. The faster the song, the tighter you'll want the bass to be. If the beats bleed too much into each subsequent one, you can risk excessive bass buildup. This can sound like a cloud of mismanaged bass.
Try using a fairly low ratio like 3:1 on the compressor. I go for a longer attack of 200 to 350 ms and a quick attack. This way the compressor doesn't react so dramatically to each oncoming hit.
I am a major proponent of parallel compression on the kick drum. In a rock mix you'll need that little extra to help the kick cut through the mix.
I also prefer to create a "mult" of the kick drum and use it exclusively for sub frequency information. When doing this it is very important to have a well-treated room with accurate monitoring. Adding too much of the sub frequencies can result in a bass nightmare (though adding too little can make for an anemic sounding kick drum).
At this point we'll want to get the bass guitar working with the kick. In the same manner as the kick, solo the bass guitar. I tend to roll off the sub frequencies at the same spot. It is much easier to control with a multed track exclusive to the sub-bass frequencies.
With the bass guitar you'll more than likely treat it in a similar fashion as the kick drum. Though one thing to keep in mind is, when pairing these two together, it is important to ensure that they each can function in unison, as well as have separate qualities.
Generally, I start by assigning the kick drum to carry the attack and bass guitar to generate a musical tone. One way of achieving this is to send your kick drum prefader to a separate mono buss. You can then add a compressor to the bass guitar and side chain it from the kick buss. This will allow the compressor to react to the kick drum. It will also tighten the relationship between the kick and bass guitar, allowing it to breath in a natural, more musical fashion.
Happy mixing!