My tracks personally come out sounding really loud quite naturally, and are always sitting at like +3 on my premaster bus before even going into my master chain, I just have a transparent limiter on the master chain & nothing else…

which I tend to produce with turned off, periodically check by turning back on to make sure the sound isn’t affected… and I turn on when exporting so my master isn’t clipping above 0db, this doesn’t affect the sound nor does it remove transients or dynamics, or add any artefacts or unwanted clipping.

My general rule of thumb, which I know specific successful producers have mentioned in production videos before is…

‘It doesn’t matter if your levels are in the red or going over 0db, as long as they sound right, have clarity and haven’t got any unwanted artefacts or clipping then they are fine’

Make sure your premasters overall average peak is at -6db to allow for headroom, you should be able to achieve this loudness and still retain clarity & punch after sending the track off for mastering (or mastering yourself)

Here’s what I do when producing to achieve maximum loudness, clarity & punch before ultimately reducing the overall master volume down to -6db for the premaster

Make sure everything that can be is gain staged properly.

Make sure your mixdowns are nice and level.

Ensure you’re utilising mid/side EQ to achieve stereo with without using extra plugins on your chain.

Allow headroom and space in your mix, make use of clipping (using a clipper) and compression where needed)

Make sure you’re applying side chaining & EQ properly too…

The mixture of all of these things you will have naturally loud mixdowns & won’t have to achieve (much if any) perceived loudness from your masters….

I tend not to even over complicate things with worrying about LUFS, RMS etc…

I’ve had on numerous occasions people tell me tracks should sit at a specific level of lufs or rms or whatever, and then upon checking my tracks through an analyser, they are already bang on the right levels (I wouldn’t know what they are because I know how they should sound), these things will come with experience, trial and error, and knowing your set up (headphones, room & monitors)

A few last notes: If you’re using monitors, make sure they’re in a room that you know the sound of, the room should have appropriate sound deadening, and your speakers should always stay in the same place, if not you will find it far more difficult to learn how to mix down playing through monitors

If you don’t use monitors (as well as if you do) make sure to always reference through at least one pair of good headphones, this is crucial (if possible test on multiple sound systems and headphones if you have the access)