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8. As well as getting your chosen tracks in time, it's also important to get them in tune. In an ideal world your source material will all be in the same key, but if it isn't, transposition is something you may need to consider. Extreme pitchshifting is not recommended, as unnecessary processing can make a vocal or instrumental sound unnatural and nasty. As a general rule, try to avoid transposing anything more than a couple of semitones - the more you transpose, the more you interfere with the original sample's feel.

9. A good source of sample-able material is stuff from the early stereo years. Back then producers were just getting to grips with the new format, and many took it to the extreme by panning certain parts hard left or right. This separation makes is easy to pilfer instrument, vocal or drum parts - if you have any old vinyl lying around listen to it on your headphones to discover any potential samples.

Getting vocal

10. Making sure acappella vocal files are in time with the rest of your track can be a real pain, but Acid Pro's beat-mapping features can make this a lot easier. First, beat-map the full version of the track, preferably with the downbeat marker placed on a beat with a vocal. Now repeat the process on the acappella version of the track - simply copying the offset and tempo settings from the Stretch tab in the Track Properties inspector.

11. A question often asked by novice bootleggers is how to isolate the vocal from the full mix of a track. While there are several so-called 'vocal removal' plug-ins available on the internet, none of them deliver perfect results. However, there are plenty of ways to get your hands on acappella tracks via the internet - check out the official Beastie Boys acappellas page, for example.

12. If you find that your chosen acappella is a little off-key, try putting this right using your sequencer's built-in pitchshift function. However, if only certain notes need changing, pitch correction software such as Melodyne (demo available from Celemony Software's website) will do the trick. If you can't afford this dedicated tool, you could cut any offending notes out in your sequencer and pitchshift them separately, though this is a much more time-consuming process.

13. Vocal sounding muddy or indistinct compared to the rest of the track? A mid-cut or high-boost EQ on the acappella will help bring it out, but don't change the sound any more than necessary - extreme EQ settings will make the vocal sound unnatural. The same goes for effects and other processing; err on the side of caution to keep each element as clear and intelligible as possible.