Sounds like a gain staging problem.
 
Imagine this:
You have one single track. You make a copy of it. You play both together at the same time. It clips.
Why? Because they add together and are therefore louder in total.
 
Same thing happens when you have many tracks adding together. You have to reduce the gain of each track so that the sum total does not clip.
 
As has already been pointed out, if something highly dynamic then sounds too soft, either turn down the other tracks further and enjoy the dynamics or get a compressor to reduce the dynamics.

Do you mean you can hear it clip even though the level meters aren't reaching very high, or do you mean that it's clipping on the level meters even though the waveform peaks don't seem very high?

Bit of a contradiction here:
 
"and its output isnt very high. its clipping and its useless"
 
If the output isn't very high then it cannot clip.
 
Where are you seeing (hearing) this clipping?
 
I agree with all the above that refers to gain staging. Get it right at the start and it will be right throughout the project

It sounds, to me, like you clipped it while tracking. Turning it down after that won't remove the distortion. You'll need to track it again and this time check your levels first.
 
Regards,
Dan
 
 

I seriously doubt whether that troll will even return to see the useful, not-stupid questions and suggestions all of you have offered. And resurrecting an 8 year old thread instead of starting a new one? Sounds like a Google pigeon to me...it sees a search result, swoops in, craps all over it, and flies away.

A Google pigeon, huh...     First time I've heard that term, but I like it. 

stevec
A Google pigeon, huh...     First time I've heard that term, but I like it. 

Pigeons or sea gulls...I've used both, depending on where I was living at the time. Now, it's pigeons!
 
Bird diddoo. Bird diddoo!