Reply to Mixing HELP!!!!

Ive been producing for fun for a while now and i barley started taking this serious. Ive been looking up alot of mixing recipes and still cant find what im looking for. I got EQing down but my question is where should the volume placement (dB) be for each individual track? People say the kick should be at -1db or -3db and sub bass should be at -10db or so, leads -3db etc etc right? well i took that advice and then i started clipping like crazy. i wont put a limiter on the master bus because i want to send in the track to get mastered and from what i know, ur not suppose to do have a limiter or compressor on the master bus.... and thats why im SO confused!!!!! >.<
where should the kicks, snares, leads, bass, subass, etc actually be on the db meters so it can be ready for mastering?

Btw, im using ableton live 8.