11. Physical noise is also a problem when miking instruments or voices in the same room as the computer. If possible, turn off unnecessary external drives, CD-ROM burners and so on, as these often make more noise than the main computer, Set up your mic (ideally a cardioid model) as far from the computer as possible and improvise an acoustic screen between the mic and the computer using a duvet or sleeping bag. Also make sure the surface the mic is pointing at is absorptive rather than reflective. Work as close to the mic as you can without compromising the sound (and always use a pop shield for vocals).

12. Virtually all sequencers capable of recording audio have a waveform edit page (though it isn't always called that) where it's possible to highlight and silence selected portions of audio. If background noise was a problem, you can sometimes improve matters by manually silencing all the gaps between words and phrases. This doesn't take as long as you think and can really improve the quality of a recording, especially where there are multiple audio tracks. It's a good idea to normalise your audio recordings before processing them so as to minimise rounding errors at the processing stage, though don't use this as a substitute for getting the record levels right in the first place. I recommend NOT normalising to 100%, as this leaves no headroom for calculations - stick to something around 99% and you'll be better off. Normalising can generally be done from within the waveform edit page.

13. You can also use the Waveform edit page to clean up guitar solos. Often you may end up with an almost perfect take, but perhaps there's too much squeak or finger noise between notes, or maybe you caught the next string just after bending a note. You can use the silence function to surgically remove these little errors, though you may end up with a more natural sound if you leave them where they are but instead reduce them in level by between 6 and 20dB.

14. Try to record all parts dry - don't add reverb or delay unless you really have to. If you need to hear reverb to create a good performance, fake it at the monitoring stage, but don't record it. This way, you'll be able to edit tracks without cutting holes in the echo or delay effects you've added, then when the editing is done, add the necessary delay or echo, which will help hide your edits, making the recording sound quite natural.

15. Plug-ins always take up a certain amount of your computing power, so if you want to add the same delay or reverb-based effects to several tracks, use a single plug-in configured as an aux send processor rather than using a separate Insert plug-in on every track. You can use the Aux Send controls in the same way as those on a regular mixer to add different amounts of the same effect to any tracks you like, all for the CPU overhead of a single plug-in. Note that under normal circumstances, you can't use the aux send with processes such as EQ, compression or gating - these have to be inserts.

16. Should you come to a point where you have hit the limit on the number of tracks you can play back or plug-ins you can use, consider 'bouncing' down some tracks with plug-ins. By bouncing down several tracks with plug-ins down to a 2 track mix, you can free up some processor to add more tracks or other plug-ins. I recommend bouncing down tracks that you're pretty sure are exactly the way you like them and to save your work at the point you were at just before you bounce down, in case you need to go back to it and change anything later.

17. There are lots of tricks you can do using the audio manipulation facilities provided by your sequencer. These vary from model to model; pitch-changing and time-stretching, which are invaluable for massaging audio sample loops, are supported by most machines. You may also find other tools for level maximizing, denoising and so on. Many of these work off-line, so you can use them even on a slower machine - you just have to wait around a while for the results.

18. Consider using CD-R to backup your audio files along with your song files. Though you can't rewrite a CD-R, they're so cheap now that it doesn't really matter. If you create a 600Mb partition on one of your drives and store (or copy) your audio and song files there, you can back up the entire partition in one go. Of course the same CD-R machine can be used to burn audio CDs of your finished songs.

19. Most computer audio systems run best if you get rid of any superfluous software such as screensavers and games - and make sure you have no more drivers than you actually need (Extensions for Mac users). The cleaner your system, the less likely you are to run into problems. Also, check manufacturers web sites to make sure you have the latest drivers as improvements are being made all the time.