I'm still waiting on the Prochannel TalentBooster Module^(Tm).

Heheh...

Thanks. These replies really helps. My vocal track is going red, so that is VERY bad. hunting it down like you describe, I find the Breverb is a problem. Taking the dry or wet faders down kinda leaves me with a very wimpy vocal signal.

I really have such a learn about this gain staging.

Thanks. At least knowing I have a problem and what the problem is, gets me closer to solving it.

Keeping the ProChannels from overloading can be a frustrating business. You really have to keep your eye on everything at all times. 

The hardest one to maintain is the Master ProChannel, because it's affected by the outputs of all of your tracks. At least with a track ProChannel you can pretty much work out what's overloading it instantly by looking at the lights on the modules (although the FX Chain light doesn't appear to work...has anyone else noticed this?)

Sometimes an audio clip or loop will overload a ProChannel right out of the box at the first stage. In these cases, an FX Chain gain slider won't fix things. You have to use the gain pot at the top of the channel. I've seen a few of the Cakewalk content loops overload the PC with all modules turned off. 

One thing to remember is that a track's fader won't affect that track's ProChannel gain staging, but the sum effect of all the track faders will affect the master ProChannel. Sometimes it can be really hard to maintain a balance. On the track I'm working on right now, I thought I had a good mix balance with nothing clipping, but there was one note on a synth that kept pushing the master ProChannel into the red. The same note, every time. Turning down that synth a little stopped it happening, but then it was too low in the mix.  It's frustrating because the master ProChannel can be clipping while the master channel itself is nowhere near clipping. I tried putting an FX chain in the PC and lowering the gain a little, but that didn't work. The actual signal going into the PC was too hot from the get go. So I had to turn every track down by the same amount. Problem solved. 

It's probably not worth worrying about "occasional" red lights too much until you're really ready to finish mixing, because you can spend ages trying to gain stage everything and then you do something else to the arrangement or play with EQ or saturation and then it's clipping again. Most of the time when that red light is going off, I don't actually hear any difference. 

The worst culprits for overloading a PC in my opinion, are the tube saturation and saturation knob modules. I usually find myself turning the output of the tube saturation module right down.  I'm also finding it necessary to turn the output of synths way down. The Z3TA+2 synth is crazy, I usually have to have the master volume turned down to 20-30% in order to prevent  overloading. 

That makes a lot of sense what you say. I can solve the Breverb problem, but then the console emulator clips and I can not solve that one without turning the track so low it sucks.

So much to learn.

Do you have the Breverb on a separate bus, or on the track itself? 

On the track itself.

OK. Leading on from your question I took it out and placed it on an bus with an insert. At least Breverb is OK now and the console emulator clips only occasionally - I can try to solve that with the compressor. It does not sound the same at all now, so I'll have to play around with the settings, but at least that problem seems to have a sollution. I must just find it.

Thanks.

It's a good idea to have a separate reverb bus (make sure the reverb is set to 100% wet and 0% dry) that way you can send as many tracks to it as you like and they will all sit in the same "space." It also saves on processing power. You control the amount of reverb for each track by balancing your track fader with the send volume. 

As for the console emulator, do you have the trim turned all the way up? 

I left the emulator at the default value - which by now is not close to that anymore after I (seemingly randomly in pannic) twiddled knobs to make the problem go away (or more likely worse). The gain is now knocked way down.