PsychatoR
i put the normal track who was at volume -6.4 to 0, its not clipping.
but if i put this track back at -6.4 and put the master bus (its directly linked there) to volume +6.0 and gain +0.4, it begin to clip. i have to put gain to +0.3, so now its not clipping. not sure its exactly the same level at example 1... but should be really near...
Because recordings tend to be in 24 bit, and because of Sonar's 32 or 64 bit internal processing there's so much internal digital headroom it's almost impossible to push a track (with no plugins present) into clipping, so long as the track or convertor wasn't clipping when the audio was recorded.
The master bus and the output to hardware busses are different, they will clip, as will the digital-analogue converter in the interface if it's pushed to hard. And that kind of digital clipping is the opposite of musical, it's just instant very, very loud noise. A clipping length of a few samples sounds like a click or pop, longer periods are just abrasive, grinding noise.
Once plugins are involved that can change, though plugins tend to go into an analogue-style distortion before digitally clipping, at least if they emulate anaogue hardware. So with plugins the thing to avoid is unwanted "analogue style" distortion caused by overloading the plugin's input or internal "circuitry".
There's a youtube video by James Wiltshire that's interesting concerning levels and k-metering. It focuses on Logic but it's applicable to any DAW.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7WigF9IDdcQ