Welcome to the world of gain structure, digital encoding, and windows. There can be, if you don't set things up right, many too many places where your platform (windows) involves itself with your audio work. Refer to the home page and look for links about optimizing Win and basic hard disk recording.
If you're trying a cracked/free version of CEP, good luck, you are going to need it. It will ultimately cause you you more problems than you want.
So your input was clean, recorded well, looks sounds just (close) to what you intended... Try turning CEP's channel or master level. Another source for distotion could be windo'z or your sound card's interal mixers. Disengage them any way you can.
Truth be told - my guess is you are listening to The J through speakers that have nothing to do with what the computer is doing, leaving you with no idea what what the program (CEP) is getting.
Watch every gain stage.
Good luck .........Razor