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depends how it was recorded. Step one would definitely be noise reduction (Voxengo makes an excleiptionally good VST plugin, if you have any audio programs) Sonic Foundry's is pretty good too. Try a hum remover as well, that will focus on ground loops and such and take em out. finally, if you can get your hands on a 10 band parametric EQ, notch out the nasty stuff and bump the good stuff a tiny amount. If you don't have a lot of experience with any of these techniques they can be a bit frustrating the first time through - particularly EQ - but you should know how to use them anyway, so take a crack at it. Regarding the EQ, here's the best way to find what you are looking for.

First, turn off all of the bands except one so you hsve a flat EQ with one band active. Set the Q to a larger number so it focuses tightly on a frequency range. Then, raise the gain on that band very high, and sweep the frequency slowly through the band. When you hear something particularly offensive, notch the gain all the way down. turn on a second band, repeat. Do this until it sounds satisfactory. Leave it, come back in an hour and see if it still sounds ok to you. You may also find it useful to put in a high shelf about 11k and pull it down to reduce noise up there and, depending on what the audio was you recorded, possibly doing a low shelf completely zeroed out below 150. If you need some bass, put a notch around 150 with a slightly wider Q than the other notches, then put a band at 65 hz with no boost and a moderate Q. Shelve off everything beneath.

One other thing, a few important frequencies to know about (these are approx., they vary):

60 hz: bass drum response from the fundamental tone tends to be here. Unfortunately ground loops are usually also at 60. If so, use 80 for bass.

150 Hz: general starting point for bass guitars and low strings.

250 Hz: Tends to generall get really muddy with more than one bass instrument. pull it back a bit and see what happens.

800 Hz: can make an onboxious noise from time to time, check it and see if it needs to be notched.

1000-3000Hz: This is the range our hearing is most sensitive to, and it is also the range that the majority of speech falls into (actually dips a bit lower). To make something appear louder than other pieces of audio, boost within this range a little.

8000Hz: Presence. This is the band that makes audio sound like it is close to you or far away. turn it down and the audio seems further away. Boost it and its right at your ear. This can make a whisper very convincing. This is exactly what the presence control on a guitar amp does.

Hope that was helpful, good luck with it.

Most NLEs have paragraphics EQs built in in some way (probably as an audio plugin). FCP4, with the addition of the apple audio filters (from logic) have some incredible tools. But, as any seasoned sound engineer will tell you, "you can't polish a tird."

Edit: Oh, and BTW. THE best NR I've found for less than $5k is Ionizer. It is a 512 channel GATED equalizer. Better than sound soap and ray gun, the two more popular noise reducer. I haven't tried Voxengo, but Ionizer is a really great deal for 500 bucks and I can't live without it.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: joren,

Jeff! sweet. that went straight in the favs. i know i'll need it one day

You know, maybe we should have a moderator-only accessible forum for stuff like that, walkthroughs or good info, etc. so we have a forum of tips or something. If something useful pops in there they can copy the topic into it. thoughts? (don't mean to thread jack on ya )

bigmovie, i know it sounds really complicated, and it is a little tricky, but just try it out. If anything try to sweep out one frequency, like one really horrendous one, and see how you do. Knowing how to EQ can really give your audio a serious kick in the pants. See how far the noise reduction gets you, and if you run into trouble with the EQing we're always here to wallk you through it. Good luck to ya.