i'm done for the night, but the problem is now solved and can actually be resolved relatively easily.

to recap:

1) around the 1st of july, i seem to have been hit with a collection of problems that nearly or exactly simultaneously broke the drivers in the soundcard, the firmware in the soundcard, something in the asio layer that affected multiple cards and something in cubase. i initially thought that this was a codec install messing with my streaming, but this no longer makes sense to me. around this time, i came into contact with a worm that i picked up in the library but i cannot otherwise trace it's effects. the cause is ultimately unknown, but the extent of the failure that resulted from it is cause for some thought as to the nature of it. it almost seems like i got stuxneted.

2) as a troubleshooting step, i ran a registry wipe on the 21st of july. the problem became noticeably worse from this point, forcing a reinstall. i understand now that this registry wipe broke my system clock, and that that error was repeated on the reinstall.

3) the system clock remained dysfunctional for some time after it was realized to be a dominant problem and fixed on the software side. the ultimate resolution to this was a firmware upgrade.

4) corruption in cubase of an unknown nature has corrupted playback on 14 of the 17 files for this project, resulting in renders that are both mathematically and audibly different than they ought to be. the cause of this is unknown, but it may be solved by reconstructing each of the projects from their relevant components.

that's a full month. gone. serious work restarts tomorrow.