Clipping - Always bad?

[Mr. Lumbergh]

I'm working on final mix of my first real project and there's a particular spot that jumps to the red briefly in the master volume of the mixer. None of the individual instruments does this by themselves, so it's not a simply matter of compressing or lowering the gain of a particular track, and if I take too much volume away from any of it it doesn't sound the same. I've spent the last couple hours in mixdown trying to make it stop but as I said but if I get aggressive enough with the instruments it steps on the sound I'm trying to get. I've already applied EQ to every instrument to clean up sections of the spectrum that don't belong such as high transients on the kick, and I've run compression on the drums. Still no love, there's a teeny bit still there.
Is it always a bad thing if there's a hint of clipping, especially in a section where the prominent instrument is already distorted somewhat?

[musikbear]

Is it always a bad thing if there's a hint of clipping,

No.

especially in a section where the prominent instrument is already distorted somewhat?

Exactly! Clipping can be a very effectfull tool. Clipping is baaaad when it steals output from other channels that you want to be audible. That is often the case with percussion. The kick cant get enough of the frequencies, because they are used by instruments. Solution is ofcause sidechaining -eg giving the kick the area it need, in order to work.
Sometimes the 'coverup' frequencies are very narrow, and a few mins work with an EQ, can clean a muffled output -Try that! But in respect to you orr. question. No -Clipping is only bad, if it obscure something you as the producer want to bring forward.

[Mr. Lumbergh]

Right on, thanks @Musikbear. I won't worry about it in this case then, just keep it in mind as I add other tracks to make sure it doesn't wind up stepping on them. Is it useful in your opinion to maybe play with a parametric EQ to see if you can locate the particular frequencies causing it, if any?