i still have testing to do, but i've more or less ruled out the ram. everything remains completely consistent, regardless of which slots i use or which sticks i put in.

i don't think it's the board, either.

i'm demonstrating that the output is very consistently different after the save. but i'm also demonstrating that it's always the same before the save, and always the same after the save. i had to test this because i'm running out of ideas, but i can't really build a chain of logic that would implicate the ram.

i'm going to test on the laptop. but i'm almost entirely convinced that this is a programming error that i just never noticed and that the outputs from july are closer to the direct ram output due to an error in the drivers that sort of cancelled it out. while that might have resulted in cleaner renders for those specific files, it's likely not reproducible and i'm going to just have to adjust - or switch to another daw.