doubling tracks delay trick

One thing I'll always try on mixing my guitar tracks is copying the original, then dragging the copy a few milliseconds late, and/or panning each one either full left and right or a mixture inbetween. This can add depth to the sound of some stale sounding mono tracks just centered left and right. It seems less effective for acoustic, but I'll experiment. Try it if you don't already.

I used to try doing that with mixed results. If it's too close all you get is an out of phase sound or a chorus effect. If it's too far apart, it screws up the timing in a tight song.
If ya can afford it, another solution is using an amp simulator. (ie, AmpliTube etc..) There's tons of presets that will shift a boring mono guitar left & right and add some reverb and echo too if you want.
Another is a plug-in VST chorus effect or echo.

The best way is just record the same guitar part twice and pan them extreme left and right. (works great on acoustic). Then add some room reverb to both channels so it fills in the center a bit. If you 'print' the reverb to a separate channel. (or record the 'wet' mix to a new stereo channel), you can save CPU usage by using the fader to bring the reverb in as necessary on that channel without leaving the reverb switched on. You'll probably want to apply some compression to the dry channels so that it evens up the sound difference between the left & right dynamics.

Copying and dragging tracks slightly apart from either works great on vocal harmonies though. Record a 4 part harmony. Pan the whole thing over the whole spectrum, then copy & drag the 4 tracks slightly behind the originals and reverse the way you panned the originals.

For best results you need to work out the length of the delay that you use and this is determined by the tempo of the song (in bpm).

You can find a calculator below:

http://www.amgard.net/misc1.htm

He doesn't mean to create an actual echo, he's talking about a 10-30 ms delay here.

This kind of "fake stereo" can definitely work, but I prefer a properly doubled track any day.

Originally Posted by: SPLHe doesn't mean to create an actual echo, he's talking about a 10-30 ms delay here.

Yep, but thanks for the link anyways Doc, I could use it too.