Leeneia: Of course you have to reduce background noises. Sound is sound and if it's there it will get recorded. In fact tape has an inherent background hiss which will mask out low level noise, while digital recording has negligible noise so you may have to be even more careful about the cats, birds, traffic and CH or AC.

Another difference with a computer is that the computer itself can make a lot of noise and you may need to hide that away behind a sound blocking barrier. In the next room, behind a desk or sofa with cushions piled over it - whatever's handy and works. Or get a low noise PC case with quiet fans. My Antec P150 is a miracle of quiet PC engineering, for example.

You may also find, especially when you back off the mics (that was good advice about keeping away from the sound hole, by the way) that you are recording too much of the room acoustic and in a typical house that's not very good. You can't get a good reverberant acoustic in a small room, so the answer is to absorb sound and than you find out about bass traps and you find that making good recordings isn't about sound cards, digital electronics and condenser mics, it's about room treatment and building materials! But a living room with soft furnishings like that sofa I mentioned is probably OK.

Anahata