Recording the same signal to two tracks and then panning will sound exactly the same as a single track. Try performing it twice, once panned left and once panned right. There are lots of variations on this idea. Experiment and have fun.

to expand on what David said, if you want a 'stereo' guitar (one performance), you would have to record the performance with at least two microphones on the same sound source, using techniques a la x/y, ortf, m/s, etc.

let your ears decide. sometimes i might apply the xy micking technique only to pan the two tracks in mono because it just sounds better . sometimes not . sometimes just one of the tracks seems to work better in the mix so i would pan that one in mono and eliminate the other track. it doesn't always have to be in stereo.you don't have to use everything you record.

Does the acoustic have electronics? Is there a way to use the mic and a direct signal simaltainiously? The reason I ask is that I have been getting incredible results by using two mics, along with a signal going into my Line6 PodPro on a clean setting. I send the two mics to a stereo track, and the line6 to a seperate mono track. It really gives me a lot of versitility at mix time. You could do the same with one mic and the signal from the guitar panning them in different directions, and usually having two distinctly different sounds but the tightness of one guitar.

Depending on your interface, you might do it differently but you have the basic idea down right, but you are missing some.

You are going to want to take the original source(you can also do this upon input). But take the original source panned hard left. Either create an aux track or another audio track and bus the original signal over to the new track. Pan this track hard right.

Now the important part is to put a really short delay on the right side track. Add a 16ms delay mix it totally wet, no extra gain, no feedback, no nothing, just the 16ms delay.

This will create a nice stereo like sound for you. You can also experiment with the delay. But i have found 14-16ms to be the sweetspot.

If you have a pickup then you can try panning that center in addition. Just go by what your ears tell you

numrologst wrote: This will create a nice stereo like sound for you. You can also experiment with the delay. But i have found 14-16ms to be the sweetspot.

horray for mono phase! (and dont give me crap aobut mono never used. think how many people in the world use a PS2 or DVD player throughh a mono tv speaker!)

when i use delay for stereo, its almost never final (have a couple tricks which i use it to smooth out backings and give stereopresence, but its electronica so..)

ive also noticed gain changes when delaying one side slightly over the other. it sounsd very lopsided. panning only seemed to weaken the signal too.

the best setting ive found is 400ms+, and no im not kidding. on some parts it really sounds bad, but blended in with the right instrument it is hardly noticable.

imo the best acoustic track ive ever heaard is from googoo dolls' Iris. differently strummed (or used a weird delay) on left and right. very light and just barely in the mix.

for guitar i will almost ALWAYS suggest track it twice hard panned. maybe even layer some more tracks (for electric).

ive tried every trick i could think of, differently compressing sides (was unreliable), delays (never came out near as full as 2X track), never tried EQ because i would never dare to try something so nasty (i would use 2 seperately toned amps for that), using various verbs and stereo effects (has a nice effect, but isnt very straight up).

even in electronica running saws through distortion units, i always make 2 individually tweaked saw waves through left/right as opposed to using delay. it made a huge difference.

try a close condinser for middle, then 2 ambience mics left and right facing the guitar maybe. keep all their phase lined (by placement or delays). mix the ambience to stereo liking. that would be the first thing i would try. you should get a pretty natural sound out of it. acoustic mostly lies in the extreme highs (usually) so you dont need THAT direct of a sound.

thanks for the replies.