Recording My Celllo using a Condenser Mic

[Giselle]

Hello, I have never tried to record anything on my PC, and I got stuck trying to set it up.

I got this microphone:
http://www.akg.com/site/products/pow...uage,EN.ht ml

and a battery pack:
http://www.akg.com/site/products/pow...nguage,EN.html

Then I just plugged the output from the battery pack into my PC's microphone input. The problem is - it doesn't sound very good. The sound seems warped and there is a ton of hard to remove noise. Am I missing a component? An amp maybe? Pre-amp? I am not sure what I need... so any tips would be greatly appreciated.
I would also love to have an amp setup which would just allow me to play my cello through speakers! How would I know what to look for? What params are important?

Thanks for your patience!

[sabianq]

honestly,
you should get a dedicated USB or Firewire audio interface...

http://www.sweetwater.com/shop/compu...io_interfaces/

if you want a good pre amplifier, i would suggest a channel strip or an analogue mixer.

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/StudioChan/

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/802VLZ3/

[Giselle]

Hey thanks for your help!

So I got this thing:
http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/MobilePreUSB.html

And cannot hear *any* difference in the sound being recorded... well maybe it's louder, but it still has that metallic / mechanical sound distortion especially when I play louder.

Any idea what else it may be? The cello I am using is very cheap, ($200 value), but still sounds very very nice compared to what gets recorded.
Any idea how to trouble-shoot this?