Crunchy track was recorded clean, no clipping at all. Why is it crunchy?

Recording & Production
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HI all -brand spankin’ new fresh-faced newbie here =)

Long-time bassist with no real credits (yet!) to my name. Small private studio (Pond Studio) with good gear (40 ch I/O of Apollo 16’s, Neve DI’s etc. etc.). I am super happy to be able to join MWTM and become part of the community.

I am stuck, could use some advice. We tracked a guitar, super clean. No clipping and about 6db of headroom. But when mixing/playback it is super crunchy, sounds like it is distorting/clipping badly but only at the transients. No processing at all, no plugins, nothing. No outboard gear at all either. And it’s not clipping on the 2bus, except on the stereo VU meter on the SSL UF1 screen. But nowhere else. I take that as a hint but at the moment, I have no clue why this is happening.

Any advice about what this could be is most, most welcome!

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What’s your reference for 6 db of headroom? Can you adjust the audio clip level down? Are you combining to a mix bus? Does your mix bus have any plugins? Can you check the audio file outside your DAW?

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Turns out, it was the UA601A Unison preamp doing what the physical device would do, just driving into it too hard. We were surprised how ‘real’ the digital model of the 610 from UA is!