When to Smash and when not to Smash

Smashing your mix through a limiter at the end of your master chain seems like the industry standard at the moment. Hell, I did it all the time up until recently. There's a better way.

You can still get a big EDM sound without the limiter on the master fader. You can limit the shit out of individual elements. If you're mixng into sub groups smash the sub group.

For those who don't know, you can send all your pads or basses or whatever to a single bus. This bus then becomes your pad or bass buss. This way you can process you pads all at once or your basses all at once(this is not a substitute for mixing the individual tracks, just an additional step).

I'll use dubstep as the example. In dubstep everything is crushed, but the most smashed elements, more often then not, are the Basses and the Drums. Once the bass bus and drum buss are set up you can apply your limiter to both busses and you can crank the threshold appropriately for each once you've processed each bus to your liking. this way you don't end up crushing your entire mix. Just the parts you want crushed.

However, you can over do it. Don't limit things to death. To much limiting will take away dBs from the low end of your mix and add some digital distortion that can be unpleasant to the ears (this can be especially apparent on large sound systems).

This is a compromise between traditional mix ideology of,"don't ever crush your mix in a limiter. It's just there to protect you from clipping," and, "I'm gonna limit the shit out of this so it'll sound 'Big' like insert mainstream EDM act here."

-Take it or leave it. It's just a thought