I split this off from the Click Removal thread as you are discussing more than click removal - and I wish to keep that thread focussed.
Ideally you should probably remove clicks before doing Normalization to -1dB otherwise the loudest noise is likely to be the spikes of the clicks and pops.
You are likely to be better off doing
- use Normalize effect with no amplification just to remove any DC offset
- remove clicks and pops
- other noise removal and clean-up
- use Normalize or Amplify to lift the level to your required -1dB
See this suggested workflow from the manual: http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/sample_workflow_for_lp_digitization.html
Personally I find Audacity insufficient to deal with the clicks and pops on my LPs. I prefer to use Brian Davies’ excellent ClickRepair as reference in the original thread you posted in: https://forum.audacityteam.org/t/click-pop-removal-clickrepair-software/1933/1
It costs a little but for me it has done (and still does now I’m processing my wife’s LPs) and it has saved me huge amounts of time (I used to repair the clicks manually with the Audacity Draw Tool and latterly the Repair effect - but that was tedious and extremely time consuming).
I use Audacity for all my other processing.
WC