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im aware of what goes on during mastering, such as turning up the volume of a track. when producing, im constantly trying to make sure my track is peaking around -6bd but i hear alot of these professional producers talking about throwing light compression and limiting on the master to achieve more loudness. are they likely making their track peak around -6db and then processing it further through these mastering plugins? i just am kinda confused about the idea of producing at -6db but then raising the volume of the track through these tools.

There are a number of techniques to achieve "loudness," all of which stem from the way in which humans perceive sound. I'm no technician, but explaining all of the techniques in this forum would probably crash the server. Two songs that peak at -6db could sound entirely different based on the mix of elements in each track. In general, mastering is the process of compressing/enhancing a track to bring the quietest elements up in volume and hold the loudest elements at their current state. Google "Loudness Wars" and see what you come up with, there should be some helpful articles you can parse through

Imo, avoid the loudness war discourse. it is mostly a bunch of disgruntled engineers and purists who refused to adapt to the change in demand.
loudness is constant volume over time. its also comparative - you know loud because you know quiet.
many producers today master for themselves, which is why toy hear them say limit the master. in that instance, they are pushing 0db.
hippie that helps!

As a producer you should really be looking at getting a good mix. It's the mastering engineer's job and well unless you are a mastering engineer most producer's attempts at making a tune loud by messing about with compression and limiting and those god awful mastering plug ins sounds shit.

You will probably want to get something sounding loud to play it out and then it's fine as long as you don't go completely over board with it but otherwise leaving head room on a nice balanced mixdown and getting someone who has years of experience mastering music to get it sounding loud like most released tunes will be better.

jrisreal wrote:

in all seriousness i think a waveshaper works better than a limiter in a lot of cases...

Simple formula. Sound > EQ > Compression > Saturation > Limiter

A well balanced mixed with no trickery always compresses better, and always makes the louder master!