yeah, it's....

it's supposed to break up on the bottom end.

1) it's hard for me to know if the plugin disappearing thing is actually making it sound different, or is causing me to think it sounds different. so i need to be careful in not overreacting, and really listen closely.
2) i can't listen to it in the daw without taking out tracks. it's consequently hard to know if i'm missing that bottom end in the daw, too, or if it's a mild render issue.

i'm going to try rendering at a few latency points and checking different volume levels to be sure. if i can't convince myself that it hasn't changed, i'm going to have to start taking tracks out, isolating all the tracks with effects, rendering them individually and putting them back in.

i know i have issues. but i can't shake the idea that this is being done on purpose. and i'm not allowing for another opportunity to fuck with it.