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.

Guitarhacker
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 agree it is not clipping.  I want to keep all my MIDI intact because even after I think the project is finished, I may want to go back in and change a few notes,give this note a harder attack, hold that note one beat longer, etc.  SO that means I will always have some red lights blinking.  The use of red in this case seems like a very bad design.  If it were blue, for example, then I would immediately know to disregard it without having to go look at the track to see if it is MIDI or audio.
 
So that really gets me back to the best practices questions I highlighted in green above.  Id' appreciate any advice on that.  And I guess I'd add another question to the best practices set.  If I am going to keep all my original MIDI in the project (rather than bouncing to audio), is it best to put all the MIDI tracks in their own folder and then just collapse the folder so I never see the lights and never touch the MIDI again (unless going back to revise the source material.)?

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.

scook
In this case the best practice would be whatever works for you. It is an organizational/workflow thing that has no one answer.

Well, what about my first set of questions?  DO you agree that the MIDI tacks should all be set at some arbitrary level on the fader (say 100) with the pan set at dead center, and then never touch those controls again -- making all the volume and pan adjustments in the audio track?  Or do you find that you make adjustments both places?

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.

Sorry I missed those. Yes, I never mess with the fader or pan on a MIDI track, the defaults are fine. Mine are set to volume=101, pan=center, which I believe are the factory settings. The volume and pan are adjusted only on the all audio track. I do adjust velocity in the MIDI track but that is done on a per-note basis in the PRV or Event list.
 
Just curious, why did to post in the MC forum? You will get a torrent of replies in the X forum above.

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?

There used to be. Honestly gave up on the forum search function on the old forum software and have not used the new software search. Been using Google. Unfortunately, Google will only filter based on the site:forum.cakewalk.com and not the actual forum. Another thing to watch out for is dragging up really old topics. You can use the forum filter to hide this forum and most others. Maybe try that when searching.

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

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

OK.  It is over there.