Can you make a really growly bass tone with plugins? (Lacuna Coil, Korn, etc)

You can approximate this with just about any freebie distortion plugin. Just put it on a bus and blend it with your clean bass. My favorite grind tone is the Sans Amp Bass Driver DI though.
 
Amplitube 1 does it for me. It sucks on guitars but I think it's great on bass guitar, even better than SVX.
 
You can approximate this with just about any freebie distortion plugin. Just put it on a bus and blend it with your clean bass. My favorite grind tone is the Sans Amp Bass Driver DI though.

Sure, but its all preference.

I love the quad fuzz : http://media.putfile.com/basstest-86

And i dont blend, i use the quad fuzz as a stompbox if you will. No clean signal.

And its all fingers:p I hit my bass like a motherfuckahhh. Thats where allot of growl comes from to.