Vocal Tracking

[moelar2]

I've 'gotten' into the nasty habit of double tracking all main vocal parts. It sounds good, and that's the most important reason why I do it, but I feel like I've become a bit complacent. Besides, once you start double tracking everything, it all starts sounding the same. To be clear, what I mean by double tracking is having the vocal record the song/part once, pan that hard L, then have him record it again, pan it hard right. I clarify because some people have described double tracking has recording once then copying/duplicating the track within their recording software.

How is it done as standard practice? Let's assume the singer is good and can execute within a reasonable amount of tracks so that the only concern is how to track him. The music is hard/alternative rock.