Unfortunately, there are no secret settings that I can let you in on that will magically make everything sound loud and good. We’ll get into some technical stuff next, but before that I want to mention a general principle. I call it There Is No Free Lunch. You could also call it Something’s Gotta Give.
Let me explain.
As you boost overall level, you tend to increase distortion. Some tracks can handle a fair amount of distortion and sound pretty good; others not so much. There are adjustments you can make to decrease the distortion, however then you may end up killing the transients. Some tracks it’s a priority to keep the crack of the snare in tact; with others you can turn it into a bit more of a splat and it still works.
If you want the bass of a track to be absolutely massive, you can’t have the treble and the midrange also be absolutely massive. A lot of great sounding techno has gigantic bass, very little midrange and crisp highs. There’s skull shearing dubstep that has super intense midrange, but far less sub bass.
There is no free lunch. If you want to make tracks that sound huge and have a lot of impact after mastering, focus on giving every sound it’s own space during mixing. Simplify. Don’t just add new parts, remove them too. Contrast bright sounds with dark ones, loud sounds with quiet ones and so on. (And on and on.)
