here is the situation where i most often encountered the problem...
recording stage lip
b
C g
x
clarinet, bass and guitar x marks the mics.
with the -20db pad on, i was getting 1-2 orange lights with the gain to 10 (maybe thats enough, maybe not, i wanted more). i flipped off the pad and turned down to 5 and the peaks were very close to clipping, clipping sometimes as well.
interested to hear others have not had that exp.