You still need a preamp of some kind, phantom power just makes the mic work, it doesn't add any gain of it's own. Edit: oops, just read it would be going into a mic input. In that case you might be able to get it to work if you could find a standalone phantom power unit but I imagine it'd be cheaper to just buy a cheap mic pre.

You don't need all that much to get a decent preamp. The ART Tube Pre is an insane deal at $30. Buy it, know it, love it.

Thanks, yeah that was the reasoning, I can always undo a vst effect. As I can't afford a fancy tube preamp, I'd rather get as clean a signal into the box as possible. Then I can take advantage of some of the fantastic free/cheap plugins that are around nowadays. I think I might have to invest in a decent limiter though, just to keep the stress levels down! Thanks guys, cleared that up for me :)