Trouble according acoustic electric guitar

[irace]

I'm trying to record an acoustic electric guitar into ACID Pro 4. I tried putting a mic up to the guitar, and (possibly due to it being a ****ty mic) there was too much background buzzing. So I tried hooking it up to an amp and micing the amp, but this caused it to not sound as clean once it was loaded into ACID.

I tried plugging my guitar into the amp and instead of micing the amp, plugging headphones into the headphone jack, and it sounded BEAUTIFUL. So I ran a line from the headphone jack so my sound card microphone input, and while the guitar sounds beautiful, theres a very annoying buzzing in the background, which I assume is due it not being a very good sound card? (Dell Laptop). My question is is there any way to get rid of the buzzing? Like EQ it out or something? I have no idea how to do anything in ACID really besides record in and slice and stuff so I'm not sure if it has anything to help with these sort of cases. Or, maybe I just need to tweak with the Windows Recording Controls.

Here is a link to the sound file. It doesn't sound too bad on low volume but on high volume it's almost intolerable. But this is the exact guitar sound I want, I dont want to lose this guitar sound.

http://www2.bc.edu/~irace/Untitled.wav

ANY suggestions would be more than helpful, i'm stuck here! HELP PLEASE!

[Dr_simon]

headphones out and line out run at different impedances. Best thing to do is spend 1-200 bucks on a Behringer channel strip like an ultra gain pro and a Shure SM57. Id start on eBay.

[irace]

I'm not exactly sure what you're saying.

Do you mean that if I'm going to go directly from my amp to my computer I should go from line out to microphone jack instead of from headphone out to microphone jack?

I know that the Shure is a better mic, but what's a Behringer channel strip.

Furthermore, is there anything I can do with the recording I already made to get rid of that blatantly obvious static buzz? Please listen to the recording.

[PRSplaya]

To simplify things a bit. A Line out should only go to a line in, a mic in should only have a mic plugged into it, and a headphones out is only made for plugging in headphones. Don't missmatch things like this or you could do damage to your gear, and almost inevetabley get unwanted noises.

[irace]

Alright, understood.

STILL I ask though, is there anything I can do to get rid of that one constant buzzing sound? I read something about people saying that it can be 'EQed' (not sure what that even means) out if it's just a consistent noise.

[Kevin Taylor]

It sounds like a ground hum but it could be coming from anywhere.
ie, it's either your mic, sound card or the plug.

This is what a 60 Cycle Hum sounds like:

http://s93744050.onlinehome.us/60CycleHum.mp3

... being caused by an electrical short.

The only way to get rid of it is to check each piece of equipment in your lineup one at a time with something else until you narrow down where it's coming from.
You could get rid of some of the noise with EQ but the signal to noise ratio you've got there would require some massive EQing so it'd affect the recording itself. Plus you'd still be able to hear it.

To make a long story short, in order to get a good recording, you need a decent mic, a mixer or something to adjust the volume of the signal going into your computer, a decent mic cable and a decent sound card..preferably one capable of 24 bit recording. Even better is using two mics so you get stereo.
You might also want to mock up a 'vocal' booth or a room where there's no noise coming from your computer monitor or fan.