Too Much Headroom?

[minilog]

What's your take on quiet DIGITAL mixes peaking very low before mastering? I start a project pretty hot and then I just end up pulling levels down until I get a desired balance only to find out the final output level is weak. What is your opinion on grouping everything to raise level or maybe just bumping the master fader all the way up? I never really confronted this issue but I might be sending these tracks to a mastering engineer.

[minilog]

Ah ok looks like I found an answer. Happy days.

https://soundbetter.com/kb/what-i-look- ... -mastering

Q. How loud should the peaks of my mix be?

A. If you know what you're doing with your mix, I don't care. You can peak at -18dBFS and leave me all the headroom in the world - I'll just end up turning it up. Or you can peak at 0dBFS and leave me no headroom at all - I'll just turn it down.
What matters is that your peaks don't go above 0dBFS and then get clipped off. If I see a mix at 0dBFS then I'm instantly asking the question: has this mix clipped? has this mix been limited to 0dB, or has the mix just come in like that? Similarly, if I see it come in at exactly -0.3, -0.5 or -1dBFS I'm asking: has a limiter been used to get that figure?

[Marco Raaphorst]

I use Selig Gain at the end of my signal chain. For all channels I look for reasonable input level so all levels are more or less balanced. That makes it easy to mix and finish things.

[minilog]

I use Selig Gain at the end of my signal chain. For all channels I look for reasonable input level so all levels are more or less balanced. That makes it easy to mix and finish things.

I forgot I had that RE. Good one.