I captured an old VHS movie to .avi format and the audio level is low with a loud background hiss. Is there any way using Vegas Video 4 to remove or lower the level of background hiss in the soundtrack?
Check out the noise reduction pluggin. Most people would use soundforge for this type of work. Do a search on the Soundforge forum for hiss removal or noise reduction. There has been a ton of previous discussion on this topic.
Steve S.
If you captured VHS that had only a linear audio track, the hiss can be quite bad. If it was recorded in EP, which used to be called SLP (i.e., the slowest speed), the audio can be really bad. The bandwidth of EP linear is only about 6 kHz.
For VHS recorded in linear EP mode, you can apply the Track EQ and pretty much chop off everything above 6 kHz without eliminating any actual signal. Play around and see what you think.
If you have the Sonic/Sony noise reduction plugin, you can use the Noise Reduction fX on the audio track. This may give you better results than using the EQ fX, but you need to spend a lot of time learning this plugin to get good results. I have done everything from 78 rpm records, to vinyl, to telephone recrodings from the 1950s (for a very well-known Hollywood celebrity -- long story), and the results can be very good, but only if you don't try to do too much.
Try to take the "edge" off your recordings, but without eliminating the hiss entirely. Don't get compulsive about trying to eliminate every last vestige of hiss. That's the key piece of advice gleaned from hundreds of hours of tweaking, and many failures.