Should I do a delete and leave hole? Should I use a noise gate, and set it at a particular spot (say half way) to catch all that?
Or is it something completely different?
 
As always, Thanks
CharlyG

Hi Charly,
 
I just trim out the noise in between the bits I want to keep 

What do you mean by trim out? A new term for my lexicon.
 
You Brits are starting to get me to talk like you (without the accent). I still actually pronounce the r and/or t in words, large and small. Although, the same Brit can over pronounce the Ts in matter, and the next time the tongue won't even reach the roof of the mouth! ma- er
 
I now call the little phrases we add here and there the "tasty bits"!

For example, the following picture is a screen shot from the project that I mixed yesterday:-
 

 
Each one of those tracks started at 0:00 and carried on to the end of the song. There was a little bit of noise in between the takes, so I picked a point, at each end of the "silence" and deleted that silence (which wasn't that silent).
 
I then added a little bit of fade at the start and finish of each individual clip that was left so that I didn't get any clicks.
 
That's what I do anyway.
 
Another way of doing it is adding a gain envelope to a clip, which means you are doing it non-destructively.
 

So it's delete, leave hole.... hope you don't mind my bit of teasing 

I automate the free Blue Cat Gain plugin for editing out noise between phrases, attenuating breath sounds between vocal phrases and volume leveling.
 
It's quicker than splitting clips and applying fades and non-destructive. By automating gain (as opposed to volume) for leveling it makes subsequent compression smoother.
 
The Blue Cat plugin has an added advantage, in that multiple instances may be linked so that you need only adjust one track in a group. This is very handy for double-tracked vocals or comped vocals.

To add "clip automation," expand the track height and click on the down pointing triangle in the box labled Clips. The context menu gives you four options... Select Gain:-
 

 
And you get a red line across your clips.
 
Add a couple of nodes and you can do this:-
 

 

bitflipper
By automating gain

You beat me to it Dave... It's always good when you come to the rescue of us noobs.
 
Splitting clips is something I have always done because I never knew anything better. So thanks for pointing out the better way 

What I usually do is use "comping" to put together all the best parts of the best takes I recorded and then "Flatten" it so I have one long take to work with. I leave all the noise in for that.
 
Then I unlock the flattened comp (so I can edit it) and create splits where the noise occurs. I crop out or delete the noise areas getting the clip boundaries as close to the useable soud as I can and put in fades (I spend quite a bit of time making sure I get the fades and crops sounding as nice and natural as possible).
 
Once it all sounds good then I flatten it all again so I'm again working with one long clip.
 
It uses up a little more disk space to have those silent parts saved as audio but it makes managing/editing/moving the final takes.
 
If you are unfamiliar with some of the functions I mentioned look up...
 
Comping
 
Take Lanes
 
Clips
 
Flatten Comp
 
Lock/Unlock Clip (Position and Data)
 
Cheers.

Oh... yeah, automation is definitely a good option as well but you'll have to spend some time reading up on how automation lanes work and how to wrestle with the nodes/envelopes.
 
Good stuff to learn but I know you are still grappling with some of the basics, Charly. I still get tripped up by automation and for something like this I don't bother.
 
Mind you because I haven't really spent a lot of time playing with automation envelopes (but I really should... and will soon) I'm a bit of a dullard in that department. I also for something like this I kind of prefer the noises be completely removed as opposed to just turned down. That way I can drag the audio wherever I want and know the noise is gone. In the case where the automation envelope (or the parameter you've mapped it to) is copied along with the clip the noise comes back.
 
However the simple way around that is to simply bounce the automation effect to the clip... but that's another thing to learn (which you should... bouncing is important to understand for many reasons).
 
Cheers.
 
PS: "Flatten" is really just a kind of "bounce" anyway that is directly related to Sonar's comping mode. It's just kind of a really fast/convenient/foolproof way to do it.