audio clean-up

[Krum]

I've transfered an audio recording from a tape deck to my computer. I could only get it to transfer in "raw" format. It's a recording of a conversation and the quality is lousy. It's full of pops, hisses and background noise. I have access to sony's soundforge program, which I'm hoping to use to clean it up. Since I'm a total newb when it comes to audio, can anyone tell me how to go about this? e.g. what filters to use, format to convert it into, other progs which might work better, etc.?

[nightflier]

It's not inexpensive, but it is by far the fastest way to learn Soundforge:

http://www.sonymediasoftware.com/products/showproduct.asp?PID=981

If that's too expensive, you might want to consider some of the higher rated Soundforge books out there. This one seems to be really popular:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/159200539X/sr=8-3/qid=1154714180/ref=pd_bbs_3/102-5751990-2870513?ie=UTF8

There's also:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1578202442/sr=8-6/qid=1154714180/ref=pd_bbs_6/102-5751990-2870513?ie=UTF8

and

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1929685106/sr=8-9/qid=1154714180/ref=pd_bbs_9/102-5751990-2870513?ie=UTF8