Wurlitzer wrote:3. Would you double the bass guitar part with bass strings at some spots (for intensity) and carve the low end out of the strings, so that just the character would remain, but not the frequency conflict?
I agree with a PP that I'd be tempted not to use bass strings, or at least not use them much.
You need to have a clear idea what you mean by "strings". The 4/5 part outlay of the classical orchestra wasn't designed to go with a pop or rock band, it was designed to be the main backbone of the music that composers started with and then added things do. It performs this function very well because the stringed instruments are so homogenous (a cello sounds pretty much like a violin but lower, whereas a bassoon doesn't really sound like a flute).
"Strings" in rock and pop music are often not this. Often they're just violins (as in a lot of Motown arrangements, disco licks etc.) Sometimes violins violas and cellos but with the cellos basically playing melodically, reinforcing the violins at the lower octave. They're not performing a bass function at all.
Where you DO use a full section including cellos and double basses, you need to control what you do between them and the electric bass so the bass part is clear and not muddied up. This is easy enough to do in a fully written part. With moderate moving parts you can even just double them, and it's similar to what classical composers did with arco cellos and pizzicato double basses. The real difficulty comes when you want the electric bass to improvise or play with some stylistic freedom. There's not really any way to make the string basses not get in the way of that and you're better off just dropping them out.
You make a good point there, well relating to the bass end of things, which would be the cellos, but in pop, not really needed, or if used then double the violin parts, but often left out. Although this isn't pop, but jazz, I think the strings fit i just right....
Fox Capture Plan - The Butterfly Effect.........
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cMhQ_teEoY
And on the subject of strings in pop, well what better example than this, Bohemian Rhapsody - Brooklyn Duo + Dover Quartet
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1nGx4DX83U