Hello, I'm new to the forum.

Now that I have that out of the way...

I've heard that panning a guitar hard left and sending a small delay hard right will give the illusion of two guitars in a mix. A few years ago when I was still using Cool Edit Pro/Adobe Audition and first learned how to do this, I thought it was the best. Now, with better gear and better ears, I'm beginning to notice problems with it, even though it does what it's supposed to.

First, (and I've tried a few different delay plug-ins), I always have the problem of the transient not seeming as loud on the delayed channel, even though it is (according to meter readings). I am assuming this is because the human mind perceives most small delays (less than 40 ms or so) to come from the direction of the original signal. Whether that's what's happening here or not isn't really a big deal; I don't mind it sounding slightly left (or right, if I reverse the setup). Gives a little more distinction.

Second, my bigger concern is that the delay seems to create partial phase cancellation. In headphones, the guitar can sound perfect, and though a normal speaker setup, sounds thin and/or tinny. I've tried playing around with phase shifting on the delayed channel (while listening in mono), but to no avail.

So my question: Is there a way around these problems (especially the second one)?
I realize now that the better option would have been to actually record a second guitar track identical to the first, or used some dual miking technique. But that's almost a whole CD worth of stuff to re-do.

(I sometimes use this technique on BGVs with the same results.)

In reference to the second part, how short are you making the delay? If it's too short it'll cause phase cancellation. Off the top of my head, I'd say start it around 50-100ms. Maybe try a quickly decaying multi-delay or add some reverb to the delay (and/or the original, too). EQ the delay track slightly different than the original, also.