Finalizing a recording

[Austiban]

Another noob question.  Are there any standard effects that are usually added to finalize a recording? I have Cakewalk Sonar and SOny Sound Forge, and they have effects such as normalize, resample. I'm just a bit lost as to what they do or if they negatively affect anything. 

[drathbun]

I use Sonar and SoundForge too. I do all my recording and mixing in Sonar and then mix it down to a wave file. Then I open it in SoundForge and trim any front end and do a trim and fade out at the end. Then I run the WaveHammer compressor/volume maximizer on it with the "smooth compression" setting. It really breathes some life into the recording and levels the volume so all my tracks are relatively the same across a CD.

[Austiban]

thanks     I'm waiting for a usb preamp that I just ordered, then I'll give that a shot.