I lost my first YouTube channel two years ago for reusing clips without changing them enough, so I get your fear completely. Starting another channel on a VPS won't automatically get your old channel banned - Google usually flags the account, not the server IP. But here's what happened to me: I forgot to mask my IP once while logging into both channels from the same machine, and they linked them.
Keep the old channel untouched on your home connection, run the new one only through a VPS with a dedicated VPN IP, and never, ever mention the other channel in videos or descriptions. That's how I survived.