You also need an audio interface, and of course a microphone, see my other article for tips on choosing a microphone.

When choosing an audio interface I can recommend the 130 dollars M-audio MobilPre USB Interface with Preamp. Reviews here.. It is excellent for recording vocals.

Before you can record your vocals you need to import the free hip hop beat into the recording software. In most recording programs you can simply drag and drop the mp3 file into the main window and it will allocate a stereo track for the beat.

Add another 5 or so mono tracks to record vocals on. Why 5? Well, I suggest you use a technique call comping when recording and mixing your own vocals. Comping means that after you have recorded several tracks under each other and you can comp a main lead by simply cut and paste the best parts from the original 5 takes into one main vocal track. After you have finished comping  you should double parts or all of the lead vocal. Make another 5 or so tracks and double the main vocal while listening to the main. You need to match the timing of the original vocal as close as possible. When you have recorded 5 new vocal tracks, you can comp those into a double track. If parts of the vocal is slightly off the main lead, you can nudge the double vocals to match the main lead vocal, or you can simply punch in to correct the recording. Punching in means that you only record the small part of the track that was off.

When recording vocals, you might need to stack the vocals even more in parts of the song like in the hook, to get a bigger sound. Once you got all the vocals recorded and edited, you are ready to mix your song.

A final tip that is very useful when recording vocals is to use a pop filter in front of the microphone. It’s a small fabric filter that will take care of sudden burst of air that comes when singing certain letter like B’s and P’s. Without using the filter you will hear occasional “popping” noises in the recordings.

Have fun recording, and be sure to check back soon for our tutorial on mixing.