My basic point being that clipping is in one part of the signal chain and brickwalling
is at a latter part of that signal chain
Thus both being different.
I guess My main question is how do you clip without coming close to "over"
To rehash, Brickwalling is a provincial term only really used around here, but as used here you have it backwards. It is clipping
earlier in the signal chain than the point where the meters are monitoring.
Because levels can be adjusted between stages it is possible to clip the input stage then have the signal level reduced to a manageable level before reaching the later stage where you are monitoring the meters. Like Roving mentions, when this occurs you may notice that the level meter isn't 'bouncing' right, but just tops out at a certain point below full scale. That's a subtle indication that the clipping is occurring earlier in the chain. If there was a separate calibrated meter at that earlier stage, you would see it overloading, but by the time the signal gets to the final stage with the meters, the signal level is back under control. The recorder is at that point faithfully recording an already clipped signal, regardless of where you set the final levels.
Instead of an all-in-one recorder, imagine a signal chain with separate components for each function: mics > mic preamp > ADC > digital recorder. Imagine separate level adjustments at the mics (attenuating pad switch), preamp (gain) and ADC (gain/attenuation). If there were also meters on each component, you could adjust everything so that each component was operating in a comfortable range. Going though that process is called
gain-staging and is an important part of setting up a studio recording chain. In an all-in-one recorder all those separate boxes are in one device, and we rely on the manufacturer to optimize the gain-staging for us since they are condensing all that stuff into one device.