[LAU] Improving a bad recording

Hi, what sparked (pun intended) my interest in audio initially (which must have been about 7 years ago) was a bad recording of a song (called "Sparks"). The goal was to: a) improve the recording by any means necessary to make it more enjoyable b) get the knowledge and skills to maybe someday record it properly I got a bit sidetracked to say the least. My knowledge about audio certainly has increased significantly, but I'm hardly closer to my goal than I was 7 years ago. I didn't manage to improve this particular recording, nor did I try for a long time. And while I'm more able to re-record the song I have no contact with the composer and interpret. It would be nice if I could at least improve the recording, but I don't quite know how to start. My only 'source' file is a single mp3. The major problems of the recording are: 1) quite a lot too much bass of the acoustic guitar - this is easy to correct 2) a very loud noise, possibly from some part of a laptop. To my knowledge the recording was made in two takes, guitar and voice, on a laptop with a cheap mic of some sort. The noise seems to be located mainly somewhere around 12kHz, a region which seems to be important for the clarity of the voice. Any attempts to just pull down with an eq (4-band parametric for example is what I tried today) had a significant impact on the voice. 3) a constant level of noise, probably from some part of the cheap equipment used. Due to the two takes it's 'doubled' for the most part of the song. To tip it all off, I can't even make out all lyrics. It might be that some significant hints are simply masked by the noise, or they simply are hard to make out. I'd really love to somehow get this recording to an enjoyable state, no matter how involving it is. Given the source it seems next to impossible, but it has to be possible to make at least some improvements. Thanks in advance for any advise. -- Regards, Philipp -- "Wir stehen selbst enttäuscht und sehn betroffen / Den Vorhang zu und alle Fragen offen." Bertolt Brecht, Der gute Mensch von Sezuan