Greetings, all:

My apologies if this newsgroup is too high-powered for a novice
question about home recording; I surfed around trying to find a more
appropriate forum for beginners, without much success. If anybody
knows a great place for home recording newbies like myself to compare
notes, I'd welcome any suggestions!

What I'm dealing with right now is a question of cabling. All I'm
trying to do is record some simple tunes using a Shure SM58 and a
Guild electric/acoustic guitar. I'm trying to run both the vocals and
guitar through a Behringer UB802 mixer and into my sound card.

Unfortunately, when I use my existing 1/4" cables, I'm getting a
pretty good hum coming through the system. Oddly, however, the moment
I physically touch the side of one of the plugs on these cables the
hum practically disappears. Is this a grounding issue of some kind?
Or a sign of a vastly inferior or damaged cable? It's gotten to where
I have to awkwardly hold my foot up and wrap my toes around the input
plug while I play if I want to get a decent sound; hardly an optimal
arrangement!

So I'm wondering a couple of things. First of all, would using an
XLR-to-XLR connection from my microphone produce a better sound,
instead of the XLR-to-1/4" connector I use now? Secondly, should I
buy a premium 1/4"-to-1/4" cable for my guitar as a likely resolution
to the "humming" problem? And should this be of the "balanced" or
"unbalanced" variety?

Any help or tips would be greatly appreciated!