Reply to Volume Levels for Mixdown

i wanted to get some input on this, as i'm struggling to find a good way to get my tracks as loud as i want them. so for all of you who produce out there, what methods do you use? i'm debating whether to use compression on the stereo bus (master out, whatever), and do compression in mastering (peak pro, any other recommendations for mac? other than sending it to a mastering engineer -_-), and leaving the mixdown uncompressed, but i find that just a little will "hold" the mix together a bit better. i've just heard horror stories of people compressing the mix and sending it to mastering only for the mastering engineer to say "i can't really do much with this dude". but the real issue is boosting certain elements of the track (snare, kick, etc) and still maintaining a "balanced" mix, like without drowning anything else out by boosting one. it sounds quiet and a bit weak at the mixdown stage, do any of you have a solution for this? or is it fixed in mastering? any help would be greatly appreciated.