Tips for Recording Vocals

Getting a half decent vocal recording is one of the most important parts of recording a song, cause if you don't get it right you wont be able to fit it in the mix right. It will sit on top of the mix and sound detached from the rest of the mix which is the last thing you want.
Ideally you want your vocal to be upfront (but still "in" the mix) and audible and clear, but not to overpower the rest of the mix.

First off you need a half decent mic, condenser preferably, but dynamic mics can work very well also.
You want a good clean signal going from source all the way into your recording device.

If you don't have a vocal booth you can easily make one with the corner of a room and a big bed duvet. The perfect place is the corner of a room that has a door at the corner. open the door so it makes a semi enclosed space with the corner of the room.
Put the duvet up so it covers the corner walls and the door.
Place your mic in front of the corner of the room close in to the duvet but not right up at the duvet. Also when singing make sure you are singing into the duvet.

The point of this is to reduce the room reverb. Reverb can be added at the mixing stage with a pug-in or outboard reverb unit.

Try and set your pre amp so that the gain is quite low. The lower your pre amp gain, the less background noise/room reverb you will get in your recording.
I advise recording at 24bit as you dont really need to worry too much about how big a signal you get into your recording device.