Another guitar recording question

[Taiyed]

I use Cakewalk pro audio 9. I have pretty much ruled out that my guitar directly plugged into the sound card sounds like absolute shit (except with amplitube but that leads to serious dropout action on cakewalk for me). I have an SB Live! soundcard. My question is if i decide to go buy and SM57 mic and mic my amp sound (which sounds beautiful I might add), will I finally get my true, good amp sound with my sound card? If it will, where do I plug the mic in? Is it into the microphone jack or into the line-in jack? Also, would I be better off miking the amp in a sound proof closet or a large, open wooden room? (I play prog-metal by the way) Thanks.

 

[Doug H]

You will probably get closer, but you'll most likely have to run through the mic in using the built in pre on the soundcard, which can't be very good on a SB Live. It's hard to go wrong buying an sm57, so it might be a good step in the direction you need to go whether it get's you close enough on it's own or not.
edit:
I'd give the large open room a try first, but that's just a guess. Either way you should probably close mic the cab.