I support farss' reply, and add to it. As well as using compression on tracks (the default like farss said, or Graphic Dynamics which I use most of the time) you can use it on the buses. Not so much to compress, but to get rid of clipping. Let's say you have one track with talk - much compressed, one track with music - a little compressed, one track with ambience - a little compressed. The combination may give you clipping at the bus level (the combined volume is over 0). The you add a little compression or limiting on the bus. But first you should see if some of the troubled spots needs to be manually adjusted with an audio envelope.
Tor

Or,
if you want more control over what is happening the you can insert a volume envelope. Just go to help and search under volume or envelope.

To normalize in Vegas:
1. Get the normalize script from one of many places.

2. Assign it to a toolbar button

3. Select all your audio

4. Press the button


You can also normalize one event and then copy/paste attributes to every other audio event by drawing, right clicking/select events to end. It's a fairly straightforward process.

Also, Goldwave's meters are screwy, set your peak volume to -0.1 in Vegas. (that's the default) Put easily, anything that hits or goes beyond 0dB in digital is effectively destroyed.

Envelopes I understand. It's the compression thing that boggles me. But, as suggested, I will play with the settings and see what there is to see.
Are there any tutes out there that cover - more or less in depth - audio compression? My experience is nil. I only barely understand the word.
But I've been told, and believe that the difference between an average project and a good project is the sound. So I'd like to get better.
Thanks for the advice here. I'll go and explore. -mjr

I'll take a crack at compression before the audio pros wake up. Here's my understanding of it, others may be able to explain it better.

In this case what you are doing is compressing the dynamic range of the audio. It is not compression like file size compression, where you take a big wav file and convert it to a small mp3.

Compression makes the average level louder. If you have a really wide dynamic range, it could become fatiguing to listen to, particularly if it's someone voice that kept going soft and then LOUD then soft then LOUD. So compression raises up the soft parts which makes them louder and "compresses" the peaks so that they don't distort which makes them softer. So compression makes every thing sound louder. If you look at a waveform before and after it has been compressed, the compressed waveform will look fatter. Its Dynamic Range is smoother. When played back you won't have to turn your volume up high to hear the soft parts which also means the loud parts won't be too loud. However, if you put too much compression on something and it can sound bad, just like if you overdid it with a video effect.

http://www.imperialdub.com/dubstudio/compression/
http://www.sfu.ca/sca/Manuals/ZAAPf/c/compressors.html
http://www.compulink.co.uk/~davedorn/computing/sound/dynamics1.htm

Buster,
I think there's more kind of compression than I've had hot dinners. They all have their puposes. The tools in VV are pretty good, from the little I've learnt about SF it has much better ones. If it's only going to be coming out of the average TV's speakers then ones in VV should be adequate for most things.

You're right about trying to get speech at a fairly constant level. Our brains use far more cues than sound systems can reproduce when we listen to someone face to face. So we need to help the process along otherwise the mental effort of lisetning becomes tiring. You're also quite right, too much compression on everything can be even more aweful.

Another great trick is to use the effort of listening to distract the viewer, common trick in horror movies, you're straining to listen to the dialogue and then whack, down comes the axe.