"...and only if a source’s levels are uneven over time should they apply dynamics processing." Well, he never had to mix modern metal, metalcore or anything else in that genre. You won't go far without limiting the crap out of the bass, guitars, vocals, synths or clipping the individual drum tracks to a point where everything sits at 120% most of the time. Sure, you can aim for that 80ies metal sound á la Maiden/Priest, but if you want your mix to sound like a modern production, you probably need to limit, clip and compress a lot of your individual tracks.
And for gain staging, I also mix with faders at unity because it's easier to make adjustments, especially when you mix with a lot of automation like i do. Thanks to limiting/Clipping, most of my tracks end up beeing close to 0 dbfs. Of course I could adjust the output gain of each limiter/clipper on each track to bring it down to -18dbfs, but it's way easier to trim down the input gain of the bus each track is going to. That way I can use the meter on each track to instantly know where it sits in the mix just by looking at the mixer window. I find this much harder when my levels are down at -18dbfs because the resolution of the meter isn't good enough in that db range.
Most of my templates start with the input gain of my 2bus set at -10db (it's super easy to do that in Cubase) and most of my busses are also already setup to work with higher levels on individual tracks.
In the end there is no right or wrong as long as you don't clip the 2bus.
And for gain staging, I also mix with faders at unity because it's easier to make adjustments, especially when you mix with a lot of automation like i do. Thanks to limiting/Clipping, most of my tracks end up beeing close to 0 dbfs. Of course I could adjust the output gain of each limiter/clipper on each track to bring it down to -18dbfs, but it's way easier to trim down the input gain of the bus each track is going to. That way I can use the meter on each track to instantly know where it sits in the mix just by looking at the mixer window. I find this much harder when my levels are down at -18dbfs because the resolution of the meter isn't good enough in that db range.
Most of my templates start with the input gain of my 2bus set at -10db (it's super easy to do that in Cubase) and most of my busses are also already setup to work with higher levels on individual tracks.
In the end there is no right or wrong as long as you don't clip the 2bus.