another mastering question...

what are some techinques for raising the volume of a finished track without clipping it out??

Hard Limiting.

maximizer/ limiter

have any of you been able to get down with the limiter pro tools comes with?

I use the limiter in Coll Edit Pro /Adobe Audition, seems to work fine, but it's the only limiter I've used so I really have no camparison, but I like the results.

i just recently have been learning this stuff.

i use steinberg's loudness maximizer dx plugin. it works nicely.

normalizing your samples before they go into your mpc is a good practice, i just started doin this recently..

i have t-racks, i really like it

Peep my post in the other BBE Sonic Maximizer thread.... here's the link

http://www.mpc-forums.com/viewtopic.php?t=45244&start=0

I also use t-racks; really nice!