Can you explain more? Are you saying "the first recorded sound clips but everything else does not"? Play detective, run audio through each piece of gear in isolation, keep gain at same level for each test. Re-read basics of gain staging to dbl-check any assumptions you've relied on thus far.
For clipping in general you can cut down on the harsh pinch you hear by eq'ing, compressing, limiting, etc the signal that is going into the clipping. Those processors can tame/smooth your transients going into the clipping and thus the "shaving off" done by clipping of signal is less harsh and less noticable. Like always if u process your signal like that aim for balance/natural end result for obvious reasons. All that might by silly for you though, if the clipping is brutal and completely and entirely unusable for your chain/recording project
