blueskygal
heres a tip if you have little money.
plug a dynamic mic eg shure or ev ...via an adapter into a cassette dek mic preamp.
take line out of dek into your pc sound device line input.
some mic pre;s in cassette deks are quite nice n warm if you find the right one.
some i have here hold their own rather well viz higher priced mic pre's.
the beauty of it is cass deks are often free or a few dollars.
what are you useing as your sound device. ??
i would suggest you dont use on board sound in your pc.
its doable, but many people often get problems.

if you had a higher budget i would suggest something like this...at 49 buks..
http://recordinghacks.com/reviews/tapeop/mca-sp1/
matched with this preamp.
http://www.studioprojects.com/vtb1.html

in the past little while ive heard the vtb1 on some very good singers
n it held its own with highedr priced competion nicely.
i think its about 140 buks.

god bless.

retired puter engr....powertracks on amd......NICE !
"what is the black art of audio engineering ?"
my silly songs...motagator.com/bmanning
see my tips in the tips section.