My parents got me an L.R. Baggs pickup [1] for my violin for christmas, combined with their GigPro [2] preamp, and a couple of equaliser and effects peddles, I attempted to do some recording a couple of weekends ago. It took me a while to get something in that wasn't completely distorted. Laptop mic in socket is not the thing to use.
I downloaded some extra effects for audacity [3] including a much larger equaliser. Using this [4] post on the fiddle forums I managed to improve the sound somewhat. I still need to do a proper recording. One where I've not already been playing a while, one where I play well(ish), and one where the raw recording produces a clean sound, and then I can try different things again, and even let one of my recordings in to the real world.