I know when I first began recording things I ran the tape-out's (RCA) from my amp to a little converter I got at Radio Shack, then into my soundcard. The converter was a 1/8th inch to dual-RCA jacks...shaped like a Y... anyway, I used (and still do use) Audacity which is only 2 Mb. and really easy. Plus its free and has lots of effects things like EQ's and noise removal.
The downside of using this is that the noise level on many OEM soundcards is horrible, especially the on-mobo chipsets that most fo your Dells, Gateways, etc. have standard. Laptops tend to be even worse.
Don't get too discouraged if its noisy, it makes for a great sketch-pad type tool, where you can just record your sound for $4 and a free download.
Thats all I have, hope it helps since this is my first post here.