Step one. look at the signal processing diagram in the manual. Boring stuff but understanding where FXs are applied is really vital to getting a grasp on what they will do, especially when it comes to gates and compressors.
For example changing the level of a signal before it goes into a compressor is totally different to changing the level as it comes out of the compressor.


In general I do not use the NG. If you also have SF it adds a much nicer Graphic Dynamics FX that works as a smoother gate. Applying a compressor at the track level can be used to tame peaks. Very handy for getting drums etc under control. Sometimes I've configured the compressor as a brick wall limiter. This frees up a master compressor from trying to handle peaks to just work on the overall dynamics.

Eq, is just that, handy to have on a track if one instrument needs for or less of something.

Aside from that, well there's careers, mighty tomes and endless discussions, heated arguments and punchups spawned from discussions of these topics. One book on this overall topic I can highly recommend is "Mixing With Your Mind" by Michael Stavrou. Mike is a lunatic who conjures up new ways of thinking about sound. He's also a good magician, really, he does great card tricks :)


Bob.

EQ - best thing I can say is use it a little to adjust tonal mood. Otherwise re-record
using another mic.

NG - I have used it to remove a loud sound by setting gate high to create a track
to subtract (by adding inverse) Otherwise you need some room sound to fill
the holes.

CP - Use it mostly to keep dialog in check. As was mentioned get different results
depending on how much gain going in.

Thanks for the help guys I really appreciate it. I want to spend some quality time getting to grips with audio and improving my work

Jerry I have tried messing with wind blow on audio
and its not easy why is it called attack time and release time? What time.

Do you have a preset that you can e-mail me in a blank veg file?

Bob thanks for the Michael Stavrou suggestion ,will have a look at this, hope its not too much Greek as his name suggests, all this learning makes my head hurt. Also Signal processing diagram

RCourtney regarding NG I understand the inverse bit but did you mean you create a track separate from the original audio with the loud noise you want to remove?

Thanks guys I really appreciate all the advice and direction

Rory

"hope its not too much Greek as his name suggests"

Very much the contrary. There's a whole chapter in that book devoted to how to adjust a compressor. Any text will tell what Attack and Decay time does. Knowing how to listen to what they're doing with your ears is a bit of a dark secret, kind of like using the color corrector.

The other text I'd highly recommend is "Audio Postproduction for Digital Video" by Jay Rose.

Bob.

>Jerry I have tried messing with wind blow on audio

Rory, I meant to say I use the Equalizer for wind noise. Try the built in preset "Remove low rumble below 80Hz" as a starting point, then adjust to suit.

/jerry

Wind noise is the pits to get rid of. you can try pulling down anything below 200Hz and anything above 4KHz but you're really also doing damage to what you should be keeping. The other problem is the wind can simply blow the sound you wanted recorded away from the mic.
For extreme Eq you may need to stack Eq FXs i.e. add another copy of the FX into the FX chain and set both to the same values.

Bob.

A few years ago at an audio lecture on processing in general (not just Sony) we were advised that for speech the Amount should be no more than 1.5, preferably nearer to 1.3. That does indeed seem to apply in practice, as judged by my ears. Where the peaks and for troughs ( e.g. unexpected and un-mic'd person making important comments) are only occasional, I do it manually using Vegas envelopes, it sounds so much better.

I also tried the Levelator (3rd party free app) but so far hasn't performed that well for me, e.g. because it sporadically boosts unwanted background noise like furniture being bumped. I guess it's more intended for clean "studio" type recordings, not the dirty stuff inherent in live events .. and I would guess wind noise.

[Saturday afternoon ramble ON...]

Audio is a BLACK ART and as far as I'm concerned, it's 80-90% of the film or video experience. Watch the Six O'Clock news with the sound off and see how much you get out of it. TV without sound is an moving image art gallery, TV without pictures is radio.

At least with something visual, several people can look at it and agree that what they're seeing is a particular shade of the color blue, for example. Plus, all languages are visually based, there are far more words to describe a visual image than there are to describe sounds. When a guitar player says to me in the recording studio that he wants more "crunch" what exactly does that mean? There is no "crunch" knob on a mixer. The two of us need to come to some agreement about what "crunch" is, but that's just between the two of us and doesn't translate to another guitar player. I can fairly accurately describe what someone looks like, but it is almost impossible to describe what they sound like. The best one can normally do is say, "she sounds like Rosie Perez" and hope the other person knows who Rosie Perez is and what she sounds like.

It is highly unlikely that you're going to learn how to do good audio only by reading a book and certainly not from messages on a forum thread. You can learn what the various audio tools are used for but a book isn't really going to tell you how to use it. It really is something that needs to be learned, in person, from someone that knows the art of audio. There are no universal "presets" for EQ, Noise Gate or Compressors. A good place to start is listening closely to a LOT of commercial releases and getting an idea what good audio sounds like on your particular "reference" speakers. You then need to experiment with noise gates, EQ and compressors to see how the modify sounds when you manipulate the various settings. Then you try to make your recordings and mixes sound similar to the commercial recordings. It actually starts with microphone choice and placement when you're recording. If you mess the recording there is usually very little that can be done to fix it without sounding like it was fixed. The saying "we'll fix it in the mix" is BS, particularly when it comes to wind noise. Wind noise encompasses virtually the entire frequency spectrum and varies wildly in level. It is relatively easy to deal with on location with a "dead cat" windscreen but virtually impossible to eliminate after the fact. If you end up with wind noise, then you blew it during the recording (pun intended.)

[Saturday afternoon ramble OFF]