What's the proper way of recording clean electric guitars actually? Or, to be more precise, mixing them - I'm assuming direct recording with some POD/software amp emulation. I'm talking about natural tone, without much fucking around with the mod effects and stuff. You know, like on Opeth's "Damnation", that kind of thing. Do you need to double track it like its usually done with distortion, or just process the single track in some way?

The problem's doesn't seem to be explored much over the internets and I can't say my experiments gave clear results

I'd say you'll probably want to experiment with a tone first. Maybe try a nice clear signal with no amp modeling but some reverb added to it, along with some EQ. You'll probably want to keep the mids higher and the lows higher so you get that thick clean sound, not too much on the treble side because you'll end up with a twangy sound (unless that's what you want)

Opeth definitely used amps for their clean tones, Laney's more than likely. A very slight chorus and some reverb will definitely make your sound a lot thicker and lively without making it seem too processed.

I have learned over time that you can get much clearer tones by placing the mic dead center of the cone and moving it back about 3 inches.

I actually like the clean tones from POD farm enough - blackface model sounds just right. I'm more interested in how this things are mixed. I know reverb is pretty much mandatory, not sure about chorus, though. Will check if applying a little of it helps. What about multitracking - do you know if it's common, or people usually record only one track of clean guitar? I have to admit I can't tell if good, wide sounding clean guitar is an effect of some clever processing or just stereo tracking.

Your best bet again, is to experiment with it. I recently did a song that has about a minute of clean guitars, but they do harmonize at one point so I did do 2 tracks. Usually I just do one, but I'd go as far to guess that to get the thickest sound you're going to want to double track.

I find clean guitars tend to send a lot nicer from an amp, unless you're going for a NIN-style fake sound

A good way to mic up amps is to put a dynamic on one speaker and a condensor or ribbon on the other. That way you have two very different tones that you can blend in different proportions until you have the sound you like without having to resort to heavy EQing.

If you don't have fancy mics then just use whatever you got but try doing a quick test recording of ten or so seconds and if it doesn't sound the way you like then move the mic an inch in any direction and do another recording and so on. It's a little bit irritating sometimes having to fuck around but it's worth it when you get a really nice sound.

As far as processing goes, clean tone doesn't come across as very thick so if you start layering other sounds you'll need to compress it by a few db so it can be heard over everything else. The usual rules apply for EQ; you can ditch the sub low stuff immediately (up to around 80Hz) and then shape the rest of it as you like to get the sound you're after.

I also find that a slight touch of reverb helps smooth out clean tone, which can sometimes sound a bit too raw if you leave it dry.

Double tracking is not necessarily something you need to do, I'd only really double track clean guitars if the arrangement is really busy and you just can't hear them over the rest of the layers, even with a fair dollop of compression. Too much double tracking smears the clarity of your songs and ends up making more of a mess than it's worth unless you're really tight and tidy and sharp with your edits.