I need to do a quick audio mixing/sweetening/correcting for a feature documentary for Sundance cut and I am not an audio mixer at all apart from raising the levels.

Are there some basic adjustments that can be made by someone who doesn't know audio in the same way you can color correct basic things (contrast, gamma, 3-wheel, black/white levels, etc.)

Mostly need the audio sweetened to sound fuller throughout and to isolate voices from background noise.

Lowrider:

I need to do a quick audio mixing/sweetening/correcting for a feature documentary for Sundance cut

Organise your audio tracks in Avid into Dialog tracks, FX tracks and music tracks before you give to the audio person to save you time and money.

If you do do it yourself make sure you have accurate monitor speakers and preferably a dedicated audio program with EQ, compressor, noise reduction, limiter and mastering plugins. You still want to organise your Avid tracks s above.

If you do it in Avid then I would organise your tracks as above

Monitor only the Dialog only tracks and go through and EQ each clip to sound how you want it. Then  add a light compression and  balance the clips volume. Your aim is to have pefect dialog.

Then add the fx tracks to the monitoring and eq and volume balance each clip to your dialog. Your aim is to have perfect dialog combined with natural ambient sound.

Now turn on the music tracks monitoring and mix the music in so it blends with the background sounds but does not compete with the dialog.

Listen to the final mix at various volumes. If you have got it right the mix balance will sound very similar regardless of the output volume.

The above is a very simplistic, basic starting point for mixing. A specialist mixer would still be my first second and third choice.

Of course I would be hiring a sound mixer if possible but my banker at Lehman Brothers seems to be out to lunch....

Any basic things to do on the EQ adjustments as far as the 3 different frequencies?

Is there any basic guide to this online?  I think I remember that sound guru who writes all the books (Jay someone?) wrote something...somewhere...sometime...?

 In MC 3.0 you have 7 band parametric EQ. The trick is to first determine what frequency or frequency range your background problem is in, and then go to the appropriate trio of adjusters. Running the gain of one trio up full and the bandwidth up full, SLOWLY sweep through the frequency adjuster until you "home in" on the problem sound bringing it to the audio foreground, then taper back on gain and bandwidth until you're happy.

As Andrew very correctly points out, you will need an extremely high quality studio monitoring system to hear the very subtle adjustments you will be making. Be patient, and take your time - this can sometimes be a tedious process, but you can be successful.

Alternately, if you had Pro Tools on a different computer, you could take it there, isolate the background noise pattern and generate an inverse pattern to null it out as best as possible.

protools would be a better way to go.  i'm not an audio guy and i've only taking 1 protools class (protools for video editors).  but here's what i would do in avid in a pinch.

1) EQ each track.  There is an EQ tool under the tool menu.  Add some presets and then tweak until you're happy

2) Compress each track.  This will eliminate the dynamic range -- brings up the low volumes and brings down the high volume.  To add a compressor, go to tools, audio suite.  Highlight the tracks and then choose compressor in the drop down menu.  Click the plug to pull up the options.  Click preview and tweek the threshold until the reduction is between -3 and -6.  I'm not sure, but you may need to mixdown your EQ'd tracks before you can add the compressor.  Someone please correct me if I'm wrong. 

3) Add a global limiter.  After each track is individually EQ'd and compressed, mix down the audio for the entire project.  Add a limiter to the Audio Mixdown.  The limiter is found in the audio suite.  Again, preview and tweek the threshold until the reduction is between -3 and -6. 

4) Duplicate the sequence.  Label it something like "Mixed Master."  Delete all audio tracks EXCEPT the audio mix down.  This eliminates problems when you go to tape or export.  If you're not careful, you'll send all the tracks AND the mixed master.

Ok, that's audio as well as I know it.  Having said that, outsource if you can.  There is a reason people specialize in this field.