When you do your mastering I think it is important to listen to the music through not only your main monitors but also a range of different playabck systems including pretty bad speakers too. It needs to sound good in mono too. Bad playback systems can actually reveal faults in mix and don't forget your music needs to sound good on everything from small radios to hifi systems.

As far as your levels are concerned maybe find a CD in the same style that you like the sound of and put a track or two from that CD on your project so that you can A B your own tracks and compare sound levels. If you choose a pretty recent CD they will all have more commercial (louder!) levels.

I use the VST Voxengo Elephant which can turn up track volumes whilst maintaining the sound quality. It also gives info on sound output levels. I think you can download a trial to test it out. It's pretty affordable.

Last edited by funkycornwall; 05/06/15 06:12 AM.
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