[mbself]

Great info for me....thanks. I should have been a little more detailed in my process description.

I never boost with the onboard eq, I only attenuate the heavy areas. After I get the "sound" I want I then start the amplification and normalization processes (and what little compression I intend to use).

I have had problems with spikes causing my overall level to be much lower than I want. I do not want to use compression any more than 1 pass at about 1.5:1 or 2:1 at the max. I am afraid of "click removal" plugins, but it seems way too slow to goto each spike (each one being less than a few 100ths of a second long....but there are dozens of them) and manually attenuating to match the level of the surrounding audio. Is there an automatic process for this that I am missing in Audacity? I also have access to Pro-tools but hate to bother my friend who will let me use it free.