Audio files occasionally have huge static

[Timo00]

I’ve had this puzzling problem recently, and it turned out it was a copy protection mechanism in IK Multimedia plugins (which I needed to reauthorize to fix this).

Details here:

2 second white noise blast every 8 seconds

You nailed it - it was a 3rd party plugin. Specifically, I had to re-authorize all of my IK Multimedia plugins. Thank you so much for the prompt reply and resolution - I had a feeling this forum was going to come through for me before Steinberg Support even wakes up and reads my email request