trying to get good levels on my mixes

[antofants]

I'm not certain what the problem is. I'm using DP3. I'll make a mix of song material using the "bounce to disk" command, running the mix through "Waves; Ren. comp/limiter" to lift the levels. Even though I'm slaming the comp/limiter (there are parts of the wave-form that are so limited they look flat on the top and bottom from being peaked; but I'm not hearing distortion) I can tell that the final mix level is still lower than I would like (lower than a normal store bought pop CD) even before I export the mix to iTunes (mac) to burn a copy. Somebody told me just to boost the signal in iTunes, but is that how "profesionals" do it. Do I need an external CD burner to help pump the level? Is this a typical proceedure to boost a mix after the sequencing program or am I missing something? The mixes are sounding OK (no abnormal frequency peaks that I can tell), just softer than a typical CD.
Thanks for any input- David

 

[mixsit]

Wellcome to the volume war.
If loudness is the most important goal then you're on the right track -tossing all remaining dynamic range to get there.
There was a time when crushed sound was not the prime goal, serving the song and good sound was. The fact that you can see clipped tops but not hear distortion shows that the system can work to a point.
You can keep pushing it up, (just experiment ) untill is sounds just like the Musac on the weather channel, or find that spot where you don't like the trade-off.
An external burner won't matter in this.
Also, you should try applying more moderate layors of compression on the seperate tracks if you haven't yet. That will also increase the density, and can sound better that trying to hit the whole thing at once.

Wayne