You're right, there are exceptions to every rule. But that doesn't mean what most people think it means. It has two meanings first and foremost before the meaning that you're using:
1. That there is a rule. The rule has to exist for there to be an exception to it.
sure
So thank you for acknowledging that there is indeed a rule here. That's a big difference from saying there are no rules.
I'm not saying that. Might I add, one should be aware of whatever rules, and how it benefits you and how it inhibits you, before you go about breaking them. I'm well aware of every traditional and conventional way of doing things, and I know what pros and cons each technique will provide, which is why I have no qualms at all about creatively breaking any rule that better serves the piece being mixed to break (trust me, there are times, many times, where breaking the rules will bring you a better result than following them as long as you aren't flying blind... know what you're doing so you can intelligently break any rules you wish.
2. That the exception only proves the rule (as they say), it doesn't break it. Otherwise it would be a rule and the original rule would be but an exception.
How do you figure? I can't see where you're going with that at all.
On subjectivity: One can personally like to listen to white noise if they want to and find that invigorating. Hell, I knew a guy that use to put blank cassettes in his machine and just crank it. Problem is the mimes that lived next door always used to pretend to dial the police to get him to turn it down.
hahaha that's a pretty extreme example, but sure, whatever... it's not so extreme of a concept to have lots of distortion on something in a way that works well with the song, as to blast white noise in your ears.
So what? We're not going to bother talking about that extreme exception here. There ARE rules to nature, there ARE rules to music, and there ARE rules to audio engineering, like it or not. If you want to be the rebel and find something attractive just because it is rebellious and does throw up exceptions to every rule, that's fine. But the rules remain, like it or not.
There are rules to nature, which do not apply to art. Art isn't a physical thing at all. Even if there is a painting in front of you, it's just a bunch of dried coloured shit caked on to some canvas material. What the art is, is what you take from the dried coloured shit... oh that looks like a tree, and I enjoy that tree, so that is a piece of art. Nature is physical. We can SEE art in nature, but nature ISN'T art in itself unless we choose to make it art to ourselves. There are some rules to music which have been consistently broken throughout the entire history of mankind, more than pretty much any other set of rules imaginable. Every single development in music from the begining of the human race can be attributed to someone breaking a rule somewhere. We wouldn't even have ANYTHING in the way of music as we know it without people throwing a middle finger up to convention and doing things how they felt they should be done. Again, rules are handy to know, to exploit, and then to break. Pretty much any person doesn't listen to a piece of music thinking about what rules are being perfectly followed..they like it or they don't. That's all they're thinking of...oh I like that note it makes me feel happy, oh that part makes me feel sad. THe only people who analyze music that way are people like us who are trying to do so in order to create our own music, and we are an extreme minority (and not our customer/listener base, in any major way) Maybe music critics do, but since when has any critic had any idea of what he's talking about?
Objectively, pancaking will remain fatiguing sounding and inferior to something not pancaked BECAUSE THAT'S THE NATURE OF THINGS outside of any subjective judgment, just as orange and purple will always clash, because it is THE NATURE of orange and purple to clash because of the dissonance in their frequencies. That is how the world is. It's not fashion, it's not judgment, it's not subjectivity, it's not a generational thing; it is cause and effect in the real world. Pancakes just are not part of the human experience as a rule (with exceptions), and therefore are not interpreted in the brain as very musical. The sooner one comes to accept that, the sooner they'll realize just how alive the world is and just how much better their mixes can actually sound.
Music never was and never will be objective. If there was a magic scientific formula to determine what everyone would enjoy, anyone could easily become the next big hit...which would really just make the concept of the "hit" non existent, since anyone who followed the formula could achieve said success. There is no formula, there is no good or bad. Music doesn't work that way, or any art for that matter. What's beautiful for one group of people can be the worst thing in the world for another. There is nothing that is universally unpleasant when it comes to art. Orange and Purple only clash if it hasn't been designated as art...and then as soon as it is designated as art...these people over here feel this from that colour combination, these people over here hate it... the people down the hall love it... the critics slam it...the art community praises it... whatever. You simply can't apply any artistic form to any set of rules in order to determine it's merit. As I said, if that were possible, we'd see everyone hitting a home run so to speak every time.
And for the record, we're not talking about light clipping or distortion algorithms here. Were talking about pancaking songs into bricks. Were talking about serious, double-digit reductions in crest factor. If something just needs a couple of dB of limiting or soft clipping to become a brick, then it is not being pancaked, because it is pretty much a brick to begin with.
G.
One thing I observe of people as a whole, which causes them and the world around them much confusion and frustration is... nobody can understand anything beyond a strict black and white world view. It's either good or evil, it's either pleasant or horrid, it's either moral or immoral, it's either right or left, hyper conservative or insanely liberal. There are no shades of grey in their minds. There are no varying degrees to anything. In this case...it's either done just like it was in the 60s or it's a brick that sounds like absolute shit. It's either vintage and awesome, or modern and horrible. Now, I've said over and over... The loudness war itself is stupid. It makes no rational sense and it does tend to get really bad sounding mixes... but that's because it's the approach being taken, instead of doing what works for the songs, just trying to one up everyone else... That's not what I'm talking about here.
I'm saying... Sometimes the way a really hotly mixed track sounds can aide a song, sometimes it can't. Can anyone argue the point I've made a couple of times here, that if nobody broke any rules, we wouldn't see any forward movement in music? Music isn't perfect, and never has been...if it were perfect, it wouldn't need constant revision...which has been taking place since the idea of music first hit our ancestors' brains.
In my own work, I don't just compress something heavily...I compress lightly several times in an effects chain... a little bit of compression right up front in the channel strip, some eq and other effects, a little bit more saturation after that, then some more effects, and a little bit of limiting at the end of the chain just to not overdrive the master bus, but maybe slightly overdrive the channel faders (depending on the instrument). It's just my mixing style. I'm not a minimalist in any way. Minimalism is just fine, but it's not so much how I work, and I would disagree with anyone who said that was an inferior way of working. It's just different to some people. Why do you think it is, that I get criticized for my techniques, and then by the same exact people, praised for my results? Some of these people have even convinced themselves., that I "must have taken their advice" to get it to sound as the result does...when in fact, I didn't change anything one iota.
There was a bunch more crap about how the monitors you master on don't make a difference because everyone will listen to it thru iPod headphones anyway. I wish I bought the thing so I could quote the article better. I couldn't believe it was actually printed in a bona fide magazine. At first I thought it was being sarcastic or something. Utterly ridiculous.
I have no excuse. It seemed too bad to be true. I'm sure if I glanced at it for a few more minutes I would have picked up on it.... 