Adequate volume is brought up by mixing or mastering?

Mastering is definately the best place to increase overall volume levels, not mixing. Mixing is not the best time or place to do it. You will always get a better sounding result by keeping well clear of 0db FS while mixing.

Create a new session and import the mix and go through the mastering processes and do it a week later as well. It will sound better and you will be in a better place to do it (mastering) as well. Listen to your mix for a week before you master, you will change your mind about things for sure.

Some people like to apply some masterbuss compression while mixing and that is not bad ( I do it myself now) but it should be gentle (unless you want it to be drastic) in its effect and also you can still keep well clear of 0db FS even if you use processing on the masterbuss.

Remember you dont have to master at the same levels as a lot of commercial CD's. You are degrading quality by trying to do it.

Volume ....I increase it in the mastering stage. 

Sometimes I will pop Ozone into the master buss and export my finished work from there.... but if my CPU levels are running on the high side due to all my plug in's ...I will export an unfinished mix and then open a new project with just the mastering process in mind.  That does assure me of a much lower CPU number.... and of course...lower CPU numbers are always good.

Thanks guys!

only experience teaches you how far to push certain elements in a raw mix, knowing that they'll change when mastering processing is applied....

a lot of guys put a compressor across the 2 buss, JUST so they'll know where they sit with the mix, in regards to the master session...

but you gotta know that the master is going to be done in a certain way, and then you have to APPROXIMATE the compression scheme in the same direction.

THEN you take that compressor off the main buss, when actually bouncing down your final mix.

but there's lots of assumptions there, and you will NEVER have gear that will be as good as what the ME uses for compression and limiting on the final product...

bottom line is, it's always best to try to get the mix to sound as finished as you think it should sound...
but if you apply compression on your PRE-mastered mix, you are painted into that corner permanently.



me? 
i master my tunes myself, in WAVELAB, not cause i wanna, but it's what i got, what i can afford to do.
so, i know how i'm going to master it, and i do my submixes accordingly

i  apply compression to some of my sub busses:
i seperate overheads to their own buss, and compress......
kick and snare get compression on individual channels....
the rest of the kit is unaffected, and all but overheads go to a master drum buss.....

bass gets channel compression, and still goes to it's own buss....

vocals get individual channel compression, but all go to a vocal buss....
and sometimes i slap a very conservative compressor across the vocal buss, to glue them all together..

guitars get no processing, but go to a sub buss....

then all get routed to the master, and the master gets a very specific single band compressor across it, for an almost inaudible effect.
it is my glue.