[schrijver]

Don’t know of any small units that also include a noise gate but otherwise something like a http://www.joemeek.com/threeq.html could do the job. A compact channel strip. Plenty of these units and their predecessors on the used market too.

Running your signal through analog EQ and compression is super useful, because they’re intuitive to use (just twist knobs) and once you’ve got your settings dialed in, it will survive any OS update or kernel panic :) And you’d need some dynamics processing digital or analog if you want to approximate the kind of voice people associate with radio or voice over.

I think a noise gate is tricky though, if set up wrong it can make the audio sound choppy. If at all feasible, reduce the noise at the source. Especially if you use a compressor, because as great as it can sound, it will also amplify the noise. You might notice this less if the compressor has a very fast release time (i.e. its amplification drops out immediately after the audio drops below the level where it’s supposed to kick in) but also that risks making the audio sound choppy and unnatural.