A while back, could have been many many months ago, I remember someone posted about some free audio software that did a great job cleaning up audio tracks.
I searched here, but couldn't find it, anyone know what I'm talking about?
That was this thread. And it does a lot more than just normalizing. If you want a "quick and dirty" tool that does a good job, it works quite well. I wouldn't suggest using it to compose any symphonies, but it does great in a pinch.
A while back I mentioned on the Vegas Scripting forum that I wished there was a script that would automatically normalize any selected audio event. John Meyer responded by rewriting and posting (on that thread only) a modified version of the "normalize all" script which would do exactly what I requested. I like this script because I usually only want to normalize clips where someone is saying something that you want the viewer to understand. You don't want to normalize the B-Roll.
You do have to have an understanding of which tool is correct for the results you want.
For instance, I run Audacity on a laptop, throw in Cinescore theme loops (or any music for that matter), change their bpm to a common bpm and one that fits the visual hits, and write the result to a file to bring into Vegas. To me, changing the bpm of music/sound is just as important as cleaning up unwanted noise.
I am amazed at how closely the results sound like the original without pitch shifting or note-losing.
I am also amazed at how well unwanted sounds can be made to disappear with this program. However, I always try the Vegas tools first.
David - I didn't try those, but it looks like some really interesting tools! I also would use the Sony tools first, but who can complain about free.
For Cinescore, at least, I wonder if changing bpm is part of how they fit to length your compositions.. I haven't tinkered with it enough to know that. And I know that the full Cinescore UI lets you change bpm on audio. Which of course you can do within Vegas.