Whether you record at professional studio, friends studio or at home, these are tips that will help you get things done right.

Make sure you have all of your lyrics written down or email it to yourself so you have it on your smartphone if you can. Try to practice before going to the studio. The faster you can record your vocals right, then more time can be spent in the mixdown process.

Bring the beat WITH YOU that will be used with you in a USB thumb drive or downloaded on your phone (make sure you have a USB cable or way to give it to your recording engineer). Try to avoid having to download the beat at the last minute or waste the engineers time. If you have multiple files, backing-tracks, effects, check everything before you even leave the house or begin recording.

Try not to bring too many people to the studio so you dont get distracted. Bring only people that are there to help or collaborate.
Keep a timer with you to know how long you've been recording.

Here are some great free audio programs to use:

Audacity

Audacity is free, open source software for recording and editing sounds. It allows you to record live audio, converts tapes and records into digital recordings or CDs, edit Ogg Vorbis, MP3, WAV or AIFF sound files. You also can cut, copy, splice or mix sounds together with Audacity. Built-in effects are given to remove static, hiss, hum or other constant background noises.

Power Sound Editor

Power Sound Editor Free is a visual audio editing and recording software solution, which supports many advanced and powerful operations with audio data.
You can use Power Sound Editor Free to record your own music, voice, or other audio files, edit it, mix it with other audio or musical parts, add effects like Reverb, Chorus, and Echo, and burn it on a CD, post it on the World Wide Web or e-mail it.

mp3DirectCut

mp3DirectCut is a fast and extensive audio editor and recorder for compressed mp3. You can directly cut, copy, paste or change the volume with no need to decompress your files for audio editing. Using Cue sheets, pause detection or Auto cue you can easily divide long files.

Music Editor Free

Music Editor Free (MEF) is a multi-award winning music editor software tool. MEF helps you to record and edit music and sounds. It lets you make and edit music, voice and other audio recordings. When editing audio files you can cut, copy and paste parts of recordings and, if required, add effects like echo, amplification and noise reduction.

LMMS

LMMS is a free cross-platform alternative to commercial programs like FL Studio, which allow you to produce music with your computer. This includes the creation of melodies and beats, the synthesis and mixing of sounds, and arranging of samples. You can have fun with your MIDI-keyboard and much more; all in a user-friendly and modern interface.

About Rob Luna:

Rob Luna is a producer/beatmaker and songwriter from New York City. He focuses on the production of instrumental beats mainly in the hiphop and r&b genres. Rob also produces instrumentals in the electronic, chillout, dance, pop, dubstep and latin genres. His spontaneous style influences his creativity, giving his music a refreshing attitude that really feels genuine. Instead of trying to gain as many fans as possible, he has been focusing on developing his own unique style and basically just having fun.

In early 2013, Rob launched a "Beat Store" on his website, which allows artists to browse, listen to and purchase licensed beats. These beats are used by artists to record their own songs to feature on mixtapes, albums or even as singles.

Rob's work has been featured in 3 different "Got Instrumentals" mixtape volumes (Vol 42, 43 & 44) featuring other exclusive tracks along side with Mike WiLL Made It, Kanye West, Mike Zombie, Johnny Juliano, Superstar O and many other talented producers.

Rob also actively publishes several mixtapes, including the "Full Breach" mixtape series, which features collaborations with many talented rappers, singers and DJ's.

Most of his latest work can be heard on Soundcloud.com/RobLuna and can be found on his website http://RobLunaMusic.com.