Recently, a used Rickenbacker 360/12 from the late '70s came into our lives, thanks to this great music gear site called Reverb.
The pinnacle of the electric 12-string sound, 360/12s also have a special feature: a TRS stereo output ("Rick-O-Sound") that allows you to split the output of each pickup to a separate amp, which got our musician minds thinking about math. (Always a dangerous prospect.)
If the Rick-O-Sound split essentially doubles the 12 strings, or so our thinking went, that makes 24. If we then use two stereo pedals to split the two signals again, that makes 48. If those pedals are chorus pedals (which allow an unprocessed signal to pass through and modulate a doubled signal) then that gets us to the equivalent of... 96 strings (right?).
And if we then add two delay pedals with heaping amounts of repeats, that well and truly maxes out our musician-math capabilities.
We may have lost count, but the resulting sound—all multiplied from one guitar—is huge. (Especially in the room, it sounded like a big ol' guitar party.)
While we had the Rick 12, four amps, and four pedals available to us, we can't emphasize enough that you should try this on your own with whatever you have available to you.
You could easily record track after track of a standard 12-string, each effected with chorus and delay, even if you don't have a single traditional amp in your life. And the variations in your mult-tracked playing could add even more character to the sound.
Experiment to your heart's content. Want more inspiration? Find all of our Sound Recipes.