Recording problems; distortion but not clipping??

[JumpingJackFlash]

I've just had a recording session. I was very careful not to clip the levels, yet still when I play the recording back I hear some kind of 'distortion' (probably not the right word, but that's what it sounds like).

What is this? And how do I stop it?

It's not the monitors, cause I've tried on different setups with the same problem. The mic was a good one, but unfortunately, the room wasn't. Not much I can do about that though.

Is this inevitable with low frequencies (it was a cello), is it a flaw in the position of the microphone? - Or the pickup pattern? - It was on wide cardioid, I thought that would be a good cross between standard cardioid (where you'd lose low frequencies from a distance), and omni (where you get too much noise from the room).

Any help please??

[C00kie]

hard to tell without actually hearing it, and knowing the rest of the signal chain. Maybe you've over-driven one of the amps the signal has passed through, and trimmed it later on, so the converters did not clip.

Also the chello itself could have a nasty resonation.