Thanks so much for the help. Is there a proprietary piece of software for decoding the log files? Am I allowed access to it? I tried to open one as plain text and it was an ascii mess.
Unfortunately, I am still concerned that this is a Raven issue. I’m going to keep futzing. I’ll keep you informed. <3
oh, and one other thing: as the steinberg download assistant was updating I got a BSOD. 
but it finished updating without issue after a restart. what a mess, though. so frustrated. top of the line equipment all kinds of misbehaving.
You can get the WinDbg Preview from the Microsoft appstore
thank you!