jgmusic

Hi guys,

I'm having trouble to get my mixes sounding loud. I know that mastering is supposed to be the stage where most of this occurs, but I'm sure that my premaster mixes are sounding way too soft - yet the levels are still peaking (or the slightest touch of limiter squishes the sound).

Please, give me a 101 on mixing using EzDrummer as the drums as a base. I can't even get a simple drum track to sound loud. I've isolated each channel of the drumkit, added some compression to snare etc. The db value of the drums track is peaking about +1db on the fader - so I drag it down to -6db or so. Does this have no effect on the final master however? How do I keep the track sounding LOUD, without having to move the faders. Surely they can't be any more compressed.... heck I even tried absolutely no compression on EzDrummer, and when I try to add Waves Ultramaximizer - the loudest it can possibly get without squishing is still very soft.

Pictures or any references would really help too.

Some of my mixes are sitting around -1db on the OUTPUT channel, with EzDrummer peaking around -4db (although it peaks when it's at 0db...)