Great post. Any specific recommendations of compressors and maximizer?
Loud is not always better, see:
To get loud, you need to lower bass frequencies. Because bass takes too much space.
Dam… i was gona post this lol.
Just in case you aren’t a native English speaker, it’s ‘louder than’, not ‘then’. Seems like a lot of Americans (a LOT) think that ‘then’ and ‘than’ are interchangeable nowadays, really strange.
Usually I use EQ and high-/lowcut filters on each channel. Usage of compression depends on the source, the behavior and result of the signal after filtering/EQing and of course what I’m trying to achieve. On each and every track I use a limiter/maximizer, just to have everything maxed out and THEN set its level in the post mixer. Usually I use always the same buses, grouping drums, percussions, cymbals, drums summary, bass, synth1, synth2, acoustic, FX, with several subs. On these groups I do filtering, EQing and/or compression again, if necessary. In any case I do limiting again. That of course doesn’t mean, this is THE way to go. It’s just my way. I think it’s a good idea to find your own way. If it’s the same, that’s fine. If it’s not, that’s fine too. Things have to works for your own workflow and ears.
There are several ways and VSTs to achieve this. One well known freebie for this taks is Tone Projects’ Basslane. Of course you could also try to setup something yourself with the native DSPs for example. Specially the new instrument FX channels would work fine for this.
Well, that depends on the source sample and the processing. When a sample obviously has a DC offset, it’s a good idea to use the DC correction as first DSP in your chain. Otherwise a sample with DC offset will always cause a lower amplitude. Nothing you’re looking for, when you’re heading for max loudness. I usually don’t apply DC correction anywhere else. Though sometimes it can make sense to put a DC correction in front of your master chain. Your ears and the level meters will let you know. 
As freebies I like the ReaPlugs VST FX Suite, almost everything of the Variety of Sound stuff and George Yohng’s W1 Limiter. A more or less affordable commercial kickass plugin is the IL Maximus. “Neutral” isn’t exactly the right word to describe Maximus. It’s imo just a most effective loudness bomb. 
Watch that video again and try to understand, what they’re saying there. Also watch and understand the curve I posted. Don’t just copy some “wise words” you picked up on the net to repost them. You have to understand those things in the right context. Bass is most important to achieve loudness. A whole lot of bass. It just has to be mixed the right way. Too much bass can kill your mix, yes. But that still doesn’t mean, the less bass, the more loudness. Too much treble can also kill your mix, just as too many mids. Too much of anything can fuck up your whole mix.
Thats it!
When I hear this modern Progressive Trance I always wonder why they want to destroy
the PA with this 1kHz Kick-Punch and these highly overtone basslines that cut through
everything. Yes, there are only few elements in the track so the bass and the kick must
be fat and so on. What makes me wonder is: when I play a REALLY soft kick on a big
loudspeaker it will make every bee deaf anyhow! And what I feel is NOT (only) what I hear.
I had serious problems with mixing when I did such hard basses. Listen to this…
I think its well mixed and I can hear the limiter working only when it comes to a complete
frequency overflow. The kick can be at -10db or less… then you have more headroom for
dynamic increases. Also… if one compresses the track too much, the breaks will become
louder too.
Remember hearing rock songs: the bass is mostly not aggressive. The Kick sounds
like… Puff! … or Tokk! but when they are on stage everyone feels the kick in his hair!
Its the sub gong that makes the club jump.
My tip is: (and I am not an expert) work with busses. On the master-channel… only
a clipper or peak limiter for safety. Otherwise it will force you to lose control over the
impact while composing/mixing. Deactivate it and you will hear that you did shit. The
Kick is way too loud, some elements are just pushed in the limiter 'cause of lacking
eqing and so on… It should equalize the signal frequency dependend. Thats why I
do not use a limiter for premastering anymore. Its silly… it acts not deep enough.
I do deep multiband NY compressing with really low ratios. On the busses I have
limiter no 6 to cut peaks and doing slightly RMS compression.
Some folks could say no to his.
Yes, its only one way to go, for sure.
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Greetings!
@bits_arts: It’s not something i’ve read in forums, it was my own
conclusion. Maybe i’m totally wrong. I’m not a professional mastering
engineer. Are You? Sure it’s not the master key to become loud and it
depends what kind of sound you make, but you can hear the differences in
this video. Both tracks normalized at 0db, the skrillex version simply wins
because of loudness. Everything we hear loud is always better. As you can
see, he lowered the skrillex version to the loudness of the other one. When
you now compare both tracks, the other one have much more bass, it’s pumping
more. At the end, it sounds much better than the skrillex version. You cant
archive this kind of sound, with the original loudness of the skrillex
version. You would easily get distorted sound, when your bass is too loud
and you limiting as hard as “skrillex” 
.
He posted a second video to compare the same track with different mastering
settings. On the louder one, you can see that he lowered the bass
frequencies. And it worked, he was able to get 1-2db more loudness of it
without distortion. Sure he’s also not a professional mastering engineer, but
at the end it seems logical to me.
You could compensate the lowered bass frequencies with something like maxx
bass/r-bass, which generated overtones for the bass, so our brain will
regnoize it as fat deep bass.
There are also more facors, which can help to get loud. Reducing tails of
sounds, reduce the amount of sounds playing at the same time, sidechaining,
remove frequencies (like lowering or cut bass from leads and so …).
Everything to get space in your mix, which will allowing you to get louder.
Just my point of view and i’m still learning. 
I’m sure i posted in here but it seems to be gone or maybe i didn’t submit it!
Anyway… I have been able to achieve some loud renders in the past in order to compete however
the trade-off was distortion with no dynamics obviously. It’s not worth it in my opinion but whatevers…
I like the idea of Bob Katz K-System for measuring loudness at different standards which would be nice
if everyone had taken into consideration. This is a rough explanation of how my process went… not making any professional claims, it just worked well for me
After satisfied with my mix i would pass the mix wav through a freq split and flatten the spectrum response
by increasing or reducing gain on each band. The high band however usually didn’t move much. Typically i
would reduce the lows and increase mids and highs.
This is probably the most important thing to do and that’s to mono from around 100Hz down using a M/S
processor. More than often our low freq stuff (sub, bass and kick) is going to take up a good portion of the spectrum so we
can better manage it by keeping it mono. Sides we can deal with later.
I would apply some light compression to catch peaks but with only about -2 or -4 max GR. It’ll help even out
any inconsistencies so that the limiter can maintain a fairly similar response through out.
By this stage i would introduce an eq to take care of any offending freq’s and to polish the spectrum.
A small +1.5db boost of the highs at around 10k often but this is all obviously material dependant.
I would usually put some sort of exciter in the chain at this point to give some upper harmonic saturation
which i found even used subtly, it helped heaps!
Now that there’s more harmonic content in the upper end i would exploit this and use a stereo widener but only apply
it from about 2k to 5k upwards and again, very subtle.
1 x EQ with steep roll offs (36-48dB per octave) - high cut at 18khz and low cut at 30hz - just another safety measure.
A transient shaper of some sort could be handy at this point but used very subtle! a little amount of punch will go a long way after limited.
At this point i usually try different limiters to see how each respond and which can give the most loudness with as little distortion as possible.
I would bring the threshold and ceiling down in unity (linked) until it starts to distort then back off until it’s somewhat bearable - from here
take the ceiling up to 0.3dB (even after limiting we could still end up with peaks over 0). The threshold will remain where you dropped it to however
i wouldn’t recommend anything over -7dB gain reduction lol!
Try other limiters - see which one works better.
Here’s some of my stuff that used this same method although i know guys are still pushing louder than this!
https://soundcloud.com/pauriniw
But if you alays lower the bass frequencies, won`t you end up with a song which you don’t hear but you would notice everything around you is getting quieter?
Thanks Bit_Arts, that was really informative! I’m surprised you put a limiter on every track, I would never do that out of fear of squashing the sound too much. Like you said, I guess everybody has a style that works best for them.