Modus

also, a little compression on the master (totaling about 4-6 db of gain reduction with no more than that much makeup gain + a moderate to long attack and release like 30-40 and 250-400 ms respectively and a soft knee -- just as much transparency as possible) does wonders for bringing out the quiet parts of the whole mix and suppressing some of the peaks which hurt the balance of the mix. i add this compressor after my master gain reducer to bring down my rms (any plugin with a gain control works), and i usually toss it in after i've laid down the first fleshed-out part of my track. pretty early on.