Seeing if your output channels are clipping is easy enough, you just have to look at your meters in the mixer, but what about the sound coming into that channel, how do you know if its clipping here
I had a synth1 loaded in a channel, and had to turn the channel fader down about mid way so it wouldnt clip, but I noticed that when i put a compressor on the channel, the meters on the input side of the compressor were showing as clipping - I then realised I had to go and turn down the synth 1 gain itself

Is there an easier way of seeing if your inputs are clipping rather than temporarily putting a comp on each channel to check?
thanks.

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vst or hardware?

what about putting a frequency analyzer with a dB meter on the master channel and then just playing each instrument 1 by 1 and watching through the frequency analyzer (such as waves paz analyzer)?

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DAW: Ableton Live 8
VSTi: V-Station | Tone2 Gladiator | Sylenth1 | z3ta+
VST FX: URS Channel Strip Pro | URS Classic Console EQ Bundle | IK Multimedia CSR | TC M30 Native Reverb | FabFilter Timeless 2
Headphones/Monitors: Beyerdynamic DT770 Pro/No Monitors

I get that with a lot of the patches in my Virus Vengeance banks. What I do is turn down the Patch Volume (most soft synths should have a setting similar to this. On a1 it's in the upper right corner), which is the volume of just that one preset, to make sure the patch isn't clipping internally. This will avoid "using your compressor temporarily".