i posted some forum questions, and while the responses were not helpful, my counter-response forced me to think about it a little bit more carefully and i need to focus on processor variables.

my memory is blurry on this. i know i've experimented with environment variables. i can't remember if i had them in the script, or if there were changes on the last install.

i think that that's something i should focus on experimenting with a little bit.

but, i'm going to eat and watch the canadian election debate. i hope trump gets fired. but, i'm a canadian and it's more important to me...

the weird behaviour i'm experiencing could be the result of a threading error. in fact, now that i'm thinking about it, it really makes a lot of sense to think that it is.

if something is broken, this seems like the most likely target for being broken. but i may have just dropped something.

i reset the fan the other day because it was running kind of hot and spinning out. that took the temperature down. while the reset can't be the cause, the temperature might be a symptom. but we're not talking about really hot, either. just relatively hot.

i don't think it's damaged. but i need to play with some things.

how can i be sure it wasn't always like this? consider the following scenario:

1) i mixed everything in the condition in it's in now.
2) everything broke, creating messy renders.
3) i'm now trying to recreate messy renders in a normalized environment.

what i was trying to do was figure out which was the cleanest representation. but it was assuming the system was stable to start with.

if i can establish that it was always doing this and i just never noticed, then i can get back to what i was doing.

i think the way to do that is to rebuild the system as it was and then try and build some old files from scratch. i'll have to do a few experiments regarding the eqs.

it seems that eqs in the mid range null. the interference is happening when i modify the eq on the bottom end. but, because it then stabilizes...

it's one thing to point to this ideal. but, if i managed to accidentally get to that point briefly, and then rejected it as busted, then i'm trying to construct a utopia.

so, that gives me another day of stuff to do, anyways, before i start freaking out. and will at least allow me to better understand the breadth of the issue.

if it was always like this - except for a few weeks when it seemed like things were broken - then i'll just have to accept it.

but, if i can demonstrate that something has changed then i'll have to start looking at replacing things.

even an absolutely bare bone system is refusing to null over a simple parametric eq between saves.

i feel i've reached the limit of what i can solve. i have no further ideas. i don't believe i've found a bug, either - i've never noticed this before.

i'm going to turn the machine off for a few days and spend some time thinking. it's the beginning of the month; i have some cleaning to do. i suppose i can get serious about not smoking. do some research online.

i'm sorry, but there will not be any new music uploaded until this is resolved.

it's broken. i can't mix when it's broken.

i'm literally testing cubase, now.

it's very distressing. it was worse on the reinstall.

it suggests the only possible problem is izotope, although that doesn't add up to me based on the other testing i've done. but, we'll have to see how far i get without it and whether i can get to that conclusion or not.

i'll have to reinstall yet again to find out, because uninstalling izotope seems to have cut the right side out of cubase, and reinstalling cubase didn't help. and, to be blunt, that's a good sign.

if i work it down to that, it's a moderately sized problem. i've been using this program for quite some time, and while it's had some issues it's never been anything like this. these are old files, coming off of tape. the source needs that sort of attention.

i have a number of ideas to try and get around it if i can demonstrate it.

for now, i quite literally have one more chance to get this to behave before i start panicking. it's essentially a logical necessity that this works. there's no other possibilities to address.

again: this is fucker at the mixing desk type behaviour. so, i should be as clear as i can.

i can't be in a situation where files save differently than they exist. i'm fairly open when it comes to perception issues and whatnot. but this is just broken. there's no other way to describe it. it's just busted.

imagine the following scenario: every time you take a picture of a golden retriever, it saves as a black lab - so that when you open it in photoshop (or whatever the kids use nowadays) it's a picture of a black lab instead of a golden retriever.

"but labs are similar to retrievers!"

perhaps. but they are not the same thing. and if you take a picture of a retriever, you want a fucking picture of a retriever, not a picture of a lab.

further, if you want to edit the picture you're going to have different results. they're different colours, with different inversions that fit against different backgrounds.

it's just something i can't ignore. it's absolute file corruption. unquestionably. with no ambiguity. no grey area. files always need to null the same way every single time.

and, as mentioned: the fact that the initial constructions always null with the tracks i have saved indicates the way it's saving is just flatly wrong.

i was able to recreate precisely the same ridiculous behaviour out of my other soundcard, indicating it's absolutely software.

i’ve stripped everything out that i possibly can. honestly. the only plugin on load-up is izotope. but it only starts doing this when the eq is a specific way that it doesn't like.

so, i'm going to have to reinstall, but do it in a step-by-step fashion. that is, install only cubase & izotope and then slowly bring in each other program until i find what breaks it.

if it's immediately broken, i haven't a clue what to do next.

but i have a hunch that it's a program called reason. yes: all this ridiculous, illogical nonsense is due to a program called reason. how so?

well, i specifically remember skipping the install on it because the...it...err...it didn't work. yet, the reinstall has brought it back. i've had it sitting in that script for years, but i really never use it. there was a time when i was planning on moving more into electronic sound design, but i just never did [i still might]. i mean, i don't want to make background noise for wallpaper, but the possibilities of these programs look fairly interesting. i've just always been able to get what i want using other methods.

i don't specifically remember if it was installed directly previously to this mess. but i do remember not installing it at some point. and it loads right into cubase.

uninstalling it and then reinstalling cubase seemed to take the bleed down a notch. not enough. but a notch.

so, that's my hunch.

but, if it doesn't null on a vanilla xp with no scripts and no extra plugins? i'm fucked, basically. i might have to start looking at "upgrading" cubase.