Eliminating background noise

[hautboisjake]

I am new to Audacity (and digital recording although I've done a lot of analog recording). I recorded a friend's guitar band performance (all amplified guitars and vocals) in a cafe with a Zoom H4 digital flash memory field recorder. The mics were so sensitive that they picked up the din of noise of the tables around them and that chatter runs throughout all of the performances. I've gone in and used the noise removal function but was only able to eliminate the noise in the small sampling section. I thought I could use the sampler to eliminate this background noise throughout the entire track. Did I miss something when using this function? Any help would be appreciated.

And while I'm seeking help, any good suggestion for a simple, basic introduction to using Audacity (for editing audio recordings). Thanks.

[alatham]

I thought I could use the sampler to eliminate this background noise throughout the entire track. Did I miss something when using this function?

No, you didn't miss anything most likely. The problem is that "background noise" isn't actually Noise in an engineering sense.

You won't be able to use the Noise Removal to take out people talking in the background.

Tutorials:
http://audacityteam.org/help/tutorials

There are also a whole bunch of videos on Youtube showing how to use Audacity in various formations. Some of them aren't all that useful, however. It's hard to say which are.