Clipping?

Ok, I've much experience in my bedroom studio with clipped signals and why not to do them.  So, in MC6, I'm keeping my eye on the meter.  I've laid a very basic drum track using the Cakewalk TTS-1 drum kit.  And no matter where I set my levels, the red lights at the top of the meter remain lit.  My hope is that I don't know yet how to read these meters.  Are steady red lights an indication of clipping?  Can somebody tell me how to read these lights properly?
 
Thanks!

It's been a long time since I have used TTS.... BUT... I believe if you open the TTS GUI there are level faders in the GUI. They can also be used to control levels coming out of TTS on a specific channel..... and they have the LED meter beside them too IIRC. 

+1 to Greg's comments. 

it seems wrong to me.

 
Me, too.
All the years of audio recording... I see red and the panic button gets pushed.
But MIDI tracks themselves cannot clip. Is it in the MIDI track or soft synth track, Patrick?

I realize this is an old thread, but I am seeing this same thing, and I'm not sure that there was ever a really satisfactory answer above.
 
Until now, I have just set up "simple instrument" tracks (or used audio that was recorded on an external device and imported into SONAR).  Although the simple instrument tracks have MIDI, I believe the meters show only the rendered audio returned from the soft synth.  So I never saw this "clipping" before -- except when I was really clipping, of course.
 
The past few days, I have been working up the learning curve setting up routing for synths that can do multiple channels (TTS, Aria, Session Drummer, etc.)  And now that I have MIDI tracks separate from the synths, I am seeing those clipping indicators light up on the MIDI tracks, just as described above in this thread.  I don't hear any clipping and the audio tracks all look OK. 
 
But I don't really think it is acceptable (as a long-term thing) to say "just ignore them".  Clipping lights should not be showing if there is no real clipping.  I don't want to start another cycle of flame throwing, but it really would be nice to know if this has been accepted as a bug.  If not, I'd be happy to write up a bug report.
 
I am really wondering if those lights are actually intended to have a different meaning for MIDI tracks.  After all, the green "LEDs" don't ever max out, so it makes no sense for the "clipping" indicators to light up.
 
While on the subject, can I get some advice about using the MIDI tracks?  My intention is to have one audio track for each MIDI track (or possibly multiple audio tracks for one MIDI track in the case of drums.)  That being the case, it seems to me that I should plan to do all the volume, panning, and FX on the audio tracks.  In other words, I should set the MIDI fader at unity and dead center on the pan.  And I should not mess with any mixer settings inside the synth VSTs.  Is that what y'all would consider best practices?

scook
Here is the explanation of the MIDI meters. The red portion is the activity indicator. The rest is the velocity meter.

OK.  Thanks.  I SURELY wish they had made that blue -- or any color other than red.  What could they have been thinking?  Red lights at the top of the meter?  That always means danger, doesn't it?
 
Any thoughts about the best practices question in green above?

The simple cure is to bounce it to audio.....look at the wave. It will probably be a happy little wave with no clipping.
 
I only use the meters as a guide in the final mixing stages where everything in the project at that time is in audio form. It's at this point that I rely on the meters and aim to keep everything out of the red. The occasional red blink is perfectly fine.

You could. You could also hide the MIDI tracks. Personally, I just keep them in the folder with the associated audio track and mostly keep them minimized. I don't even notice the meters on the tracks. Keeping the audio and MIDI together makes sense for the way I work. It does burn more screen my way though. FWIW, I rarely use the console view but would always hide the MIDI tracks in the console.
 
In this case the best practice would be whatever works for you. It is an organizational/workflow thing that has no one answer.

While composing the song, I will adjust the pans and volumes of the MIDI tracks to some semblance of how I want them to sound.
When I finally decide which sound/synth I will use and am ready to record or bounce the MIDI to audio, I will set all the MIDI tracks to center and not clipping, then adjust the audio tracks.

Arrrgh.  I didn't realize I was in the wrong forum.  I didn't want to start a new thread when there was already a thread talking about my main concern, the "clipping lights".  The thread came up from a search and I didn't realize it was a different forum.  Is there a way to search just within the X1/X2 forum?

You might as well create a new thread up in the X forum. With the questions posed here, it could go on for pages.

Yes, I saw it.