hello i have any question,i have reduce the volume of my master bus in a track to put the max volume to -3db is it efficient or do i have to use a compressor or limiter(i’m not beginner with music making but i came frome the world of tracker:milkytracker fastracker ,etc)so i had none this genre of things before .
i have reduce all my volume and it’s not clipping anymore in any track
thank’s in advance for your answers 
Hello diig,
if your goal is to avoid distortion, is is sufficient to lower your master fader.
A limiter does only lower very loud signals above a certain threshold. This way, you can increase the average loudness of your song by reducing it’s dynamic range.
Hope this helps.
I’m not sure what “milky tracker” is but the bigger question is… do you plan on mastering yourself or having someone else master your track? If you are mastering yourself, I would say that mastering is an extension of mixing (Mastering engineers would kill me for making such a comment). If for someone else, I don’t see why reducing the gain on your master fader wouldn’t suffice (as long as you don’t normalize the export). If for someone else, you definitely don’t want to put any processing on the 2bus (compressor, limiter, or otherwise). I hope this helps, if not, please clarify or provide specifics regarding your situation and your goals. Thanks.
Everyone has already given some good advice. I’ll just add in, remember not to have your limiter enabled while you’re still mixing your song. Add the limiter once you’re happy with the levels in general. Then, as @THM mentioned, you can use the limiter to suppress the loudest signals to be able to the song be a bit louder on average when normalized. (you normalize upon exporting generally)
I’ll also add in, try not to touch the master bus volume, but adjust the individual track volumes so that the summed volume hits around -3dB (or around that, it’s not an exact science, anywhere from -9dB to about 0dB is fine, you can adjust the volume in your limiter in the end by adjusting the pre-gain in your limiter), aka check the loudest part of your song and see that the master bus hits around -3dB there.
thank’s for your advice (in lot of late) i didn’t see you message unless i would have answer you
’ll just add in, remember not to have your limiter enabled while you’re still mixing your song.
It depends.
Are you doing a metal or any other high energy rock, electro, dance mix then you might have the dynamic effects active in the mixbus.
If you are going for a jazz trio, you probably don’t have them active.
Here is an interesting video on that (and other) topic:
Should You Mix Into Masterbus Compression? FAQ Friday
Hth
Adding mixbus compression and limiting etc is only needed if you like how it sounds. Most people do and most listeners expect that loud and overly-compressed sound which often makes modern music and remasters so horrifically unbearable. But anyway…
Personally I mix with Airwindows curve (which is a gentle threshold-less bus compressor with no controls) active on the mixbus and then later, when I’m happy with how things are sounding, I’ll add a bus compressor after it (namely the ACM520X1) and adjust to taste.
After that I’ll do whatever else is needed, which is usually a subtle EQ boost in the highs and a tape emu and adding Airwindows Console8 to everywhere in the mix and then a master limiter (followed by LSP Referencer if I’m trying to get in the ballpark of an already-established mix).