I only use maximizers when I master (I'm a great fan of Ozone) - never in the mix phase. Typically my final mixes neves exceed -6db measured from the Master fader, which mean that each track is as low as the -12 db as described by Teunis.

When I want to yank up the total volume, the first thing is a very lite compressor to glue the mix together, after that I use a Tape-emulator to crank part of the base volume up and add some tape saturation, then I add a Maximizer and in the end an Adaptive Limiter to take care of tiny spikes that clips and perhaps a final EQ if needed, but I try to avoid EQ'ing when mastering. I'm not say this is the only and correct way, but it works for me - the hardest part is to make sure, that I do not add unwanted dynamics or over do the saturation - it typically takes a few attempts per song to get it the way I want it.

I just tried to Normalize one of my songs instead of using my mastering chain - the final result is quite different from using my mastering method. I fully acknowledge, that everything comes down to the ears listening, time consumed in this stage of making music and last but not least personal preference/taste.

MacMini M1 - BIAB2021 - Logic Pro X - iZotope Music Production Suite - Scaler 2 - far too many Waves plugins and Line 6 Guitars and boards + a fantastic Yamaha THR10ll mini Amp - Avid MBOX Studio

Peters' Garage is available on all major streaming services