Audio sounds distorted (clipped) when doing an EQ (cut or boost) in Sound Designer II or Pro Tools.
This anomaly is due (primarily) to something called “coefficient quantization.” It can happen if you EQ a normalized sound file (even if you’re cutting), because you’re shifting the waveform around and can wind up generating a new peak higher than the original – which it can’t do, so it will distort or “clip.” You have to give the EQ (or any effect) a little bit of headroom to work properly. This is no different in the analog domain, although there is usually plenty of headroom in analog to avoid this, whereas a normalized digital file leaves no headroom.
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