Use a safety pre-mastering limiter

Marc Daniel Nelson uses this have some control over how the drums are going to hit, that way they aren’t changed a great deal when it comes to mastering.¹ Make sure to still leave 3-6dB of headroom for the mastering engineer.

Mixerman, aka Eric Sarafin, does the same, so he can have a say in the final dynamics of the master.²

Using a limiter on the mix bus to be a “fake” master can also help you make balance decisions when comparing to a reference track.³