Guitar_Player ...
You've got some good equipment and software. If you want to record directly into your PC you're going to need a couple of things.
You're going to need a transport (just a fancy word for equipment) to get your guitar sounds from your guitar to the PC. Yes, you certainly can do an "open mic" type of thing and have a mic positioned in front of your amp to grab tone. But in a home atmosphere that can get pretty mushy. You have no way to control what's coming out of the amp as it goes into the PC via the mic.
I highly recommend, at the minimum, a Behringer console. Such as this ..
http://www.musiciansfriend.com/produ...ers?sku=631238
You can plug your guitar into any chain of pedals you have, plug into the Behringer, and then plug into the line-in on your PC. And as UGB said, if you can get your hands on an amp modeler, you'll have a very wide berth of control. From the console you have complete control of sound levels.
You will need adapters to convert your 1/4" guitar patch cables to 1/8" computer soundcard inputs. Check
Radio Shack, or your local electronics shop for 1/4" to 1/8" adapters. And be sure to verify what sound card you have and whether the line in supports MONO or STEREO jacks and get the appropriate adapters. Most likely your guitar cables are MONO, so you'll need 1/4" MONO to 1/8" Stereo adapters.
I use a Line6 POD and a Behringer EU1202 console.They are very easy to use and the result is studio quality. Aside from the computer itself, my total investment for a "home studio" including software, Nady acoustic guitar condenser mic, an MXL 990 condenser mic for vocals, associated cables, the Behringer EU1202 and Line6 Pod was about $450.00 US. And just so you know, my computer is a Dell 8400 with a 3.4 GHZ processor, 1GB ram and and 80GB hard drive. And that cost was about 1200.00 US, give or take a buck. But I also ran all the same equipment with a home-made 1.0GHZ with 256Mb ram box before I bought the Dell.
Also, I swear by Audacity. It's the most righteous audio editor available. And its free ... as in Open Source.
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
Les