Um, I'm new too but the way I heard it, if you're working with digital, clipping is shite. No Clipping. Clipping just chops off some of your perfectly crafted sound. Try and get the level of each track as high as you need but don't push it too far. Bring other tracks down if need be. Keep it all clean now and you can amplify the crap out of it later with a good system. Once you've mixed down, no frequencies should be spiking way above the others, so you can boost the whole signal evenly. If I'm misinformed let me know cos I'm learning too.