i dont know if the issue was resolved or not. But i too used to have the same problem. Mastering my own audio resulted in losing the snares transient attack.
But.....there is hope. Its called experimenting and learning, which is why we are all here on this "home recording" board, trying to learn to sound PRO at home.
What i found works wonders, is not to let a single plugin do all the work (limiting/maximizing), but pace it out into a few plugins. I use 3-4 limiters on my master buss while mastering, but let each one do something different.
for example, ill start with having the first limiter do the bulk of the volume maximizing, but set it up so the knee is a hard knee and its agressive (like a Clipper plugin). But dont let this plug in do any gain reduction, just give it enough juice so it boosts volume a bit without doing any compressing of the audio.
the 2nd limiter, ill have it again doing some maximizing, but now its going to do some compressing....cause at this point things will start going over 0dbFS. This limiter will have a different knee setting, a bit of a small curve. At this point, ill set this limiter so i ALLOW digital overs........so.....
the 3rd limiter will be my brick wall limiter. This last limiter will really wont boost anything volume wise, but here adjust your final ceiling level and a very smooth knee so there are no digital overs at all.
try it.
The key is to mess with the knee settings on each one while stacking your limiters. Heres an audo example of one of my songs, in which i think is pretty damn loud (competitive), and the snare is still intact. I even still have more room to push it louder if i wanted too....
Listen Here
Like i said....were all in the same boat. I hope this helps.
