Cubase Elements 10 VST/audio tracks suddenly have a ring modulation effect on them

I’ve recorded several projects with both VST instruments(mainly just Halion Sonic SE and Groove Agent) and audio tracks. These all sounded great until a few days ago when everything started to sound like it has a heavy ring modulation or bit crusher over it. I’ve not added ANY effects to these projects yet, all the insert slots are empty. I have a Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 as my interface going to an older Lenovo ThinkPad with a second gen i5 cpu, running windows 10. I was able to get the VST tracks to sound properly by resetting the Focusrite(unplugging, plugging in and reselcting the Asio driver) but the audio tracks are still heavily covered in ring modulation. Like I said above, everything was fine until a few days ago. I haven’t installed any additional software in that time period and if I play through the laptop speakers, the audio tracks still have ring modulation. Any help would be greatly appreciated!