How do you make your mix louder?

The Thrill

The Thrill Music
Hey, guys. I quickly wanted to ask you how do you make your final mixes sound louder in the mastering process?

From my personal experience, there always seems to be a bit of difference between the loudness of my track and those of professional EDM artist at 0 dB.

Wanted to hear what you guys think. Thanks :)
 
I'm all for cutting out unnecessary frequencies, applying tasteful saturation, and everything else, but I really think some of the EDM masters I hear are way too loud. The loudness wars seem to be winding down so I don't really know if it's a worthy goal. Just my two cents.
 
I'm all for cutting out unnecessary frequencies, applying tasteful saturation, and everything else...

Here's your answer.

Hey, guys. I quickly wanted to ask you how do you make your final mixes sound louder in the mastering process?

From my personal experience, there always seems to be a bit of difference between the loudness of my track and those of professional EDM artist at 0 dB.

Wanted to hear what you guys think. Thanks :)

Send it to a mastering engineer.

If your master can't compete with other commercial songs then your mix is not good. You need fix your mix.
 
Before I master a song or send it to mastering, in the mixing process, I'll make sure that I've reached the potential energy in the mix.
So I make sure that everything is in a good phase and the overall phase correlation of the mix is good.
For example, if you layered some kick triggers together - it's important to make sure they're "pushing" in-phase together.
In recent pop mixes, it's relatively easier because most of the mix is based on synthesized and sampled sounds. In live, rock, jazz, etc. it will be trickier, so I'm extra picky specifically about Kick, Snare, Bass and Vocal.
 
To make your mix louder before you start mixing use a technique called gain staging (adjusting the volume of the instruments without touching the fader on the mixer). If you need a better explanation you can PM me. But what this does is adjust the levels to the point you can turn up the master fader or light compressor without it running the risk of clipping or distorting.
 
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