Constant Tapping/Shuffling Sound During Playback

I’ve seen a few other posts and checked if my sample rate was the problem. After trying literally all of them I’ve concluded it’s not, and therefore also concluded that I now need help lol.
I’m trying to play back some pianissimo strings for a piece’s intro and I literally can not bear to listen to it anymore as it sounds like every time I start playback, someone’s tapping their foot or scuffling in the background. It’s extremely annoying and I’m not about to dump a $300 part into my computer to make some free software run correctly. Please help!