PierM

Yes, guitar amp (5Khz range vs FF), the guitar (pickup, wiring scheme, pots values, caps, strings, nut, saddles, frets etc...) and - last - but not least - your playing and touch (style, skills, pick material and thickness etc), can make the difference. Especially between what you hear on youtube and your own room.

Post some audio. All this talk without listening it's just a waste of time. It's like talking about the smell of clouds. Sorry didn't want to be harsh, but you use a lot of words, without going into details (that matters!)... On paper, a modeler will always be brighter than a guitar amp, even just because they are two completely different things, and one it's capped to ~5Khz, the other is capable of a full freq response, with mic response and room response involved. Plus there is the guitar, the pickups, your playing, the system you use to monitor and compare etc etc... That's a lot of variables that can't be analyzed through words...so yeah, I'd post some audio just to understand if what you are getting is in the normal and expected range, or you are getting something weird that needs further "investigation".. :) All I hear from that video is that his guitar is out of tune, and he's also adding a lot of extra dBs on the high side because he's saying base tone is too dark. :)

It does give me back pain just watching at it...

IME the Helix/HX ASIO drivers never been good enough for live/low latency use. Even on high performance computers, I never managed to get a solid and reliable low latency performance. Something I could easily achieve with my Scarlett, or MOTU, or the little Jogg. Same story in MacOS. Core Audio works much better than L6 drivers. Again, this is just my own experience, in 8 years I do mess with these devices (I had the Floor, then Rack, now I only own the Stomp). On the other side, these drivers are perfectly good for standard DAW operations, where a super fast round trip isnt a requirement. The drivers are good and reliable, but not fast enough for live VST, that's it. If you really need to use VSTs for live, my suggestion is to find a product with better drivers for this use (like RME).

There is no any possible chance to a things like that to happen; a +2 semitones polyphonic pitch shifting, ONLY HAPPENING after 9th fret. I wouldnt feed it, as the guy is probably laughing while lurking these answers. ;)

Can you provide more info about those DI statements? :)

Offline editing it's just a recipe for disasters, like preset overriding, setlist mismatches, broken database etc... Also what's the point to edit a tone that you can't listen? I don't really get it lol! Tuner needs an audio engine, and this isn't available in the editor (because it doesn't need one). It will never happen just because it's a technical nonsense. :)

Block Level and Volume Block aren't really doing the same thing. Block Level is for gain staging, and it's linear. Also, since this is scaled as gain/boost, it has a huge range in dB, which force you setting proper min and max unless you don't want to make a hole on your ceiling when hits the +12dB. :) Also, since this is a gain, its variation it will change the behaviour of blocks after this one. Volume block is acting like a real PASSIVE volume pedal, with a 0/100 range, and can be set to work as a linear or log potentiometer. When assigned to a exp pedal (with correct specs) will act and feel as a real passive volume pedal. That's why they did this way, a that's why you can even choose between a Volume Pedal block and a Gain Pedal block. :)

Try different USB ports. Dont plug the Helix into a USB hub. Use the shortest USB cable you have there. Dont run any audio/music software in background while updating.

Use Snapshots instead jumping presets. You wont have a seamless preset change, even if you do a volume leveling between all of them. The pop and noise is mostly due the DSP memory unload and reload happening every time you change presets.

And the Strymon guru, Pete Celi, was Senior DSP engineer at Line 6 back in the days. Small indeed! ; "When I started there (Line 6), Variax was really a blank paper project. They told me they wanted me to start researching how they could take what they did with [emulating] amps and do it with guitars, and two or three years later: “Hey, this actually works!” I wrote all the DSP sound generating code for the original Variax. Getting involved with that, writing DSP code for a product and being instrumental in shaping the sounds of that product really felt a lot more true to what I really wanted to be doing." Pete Celi.

Open a ticket and see what are your options at this stage. Could be just a joint failure or a bad connection, who knows without a proper diagnose. Good luck.

I still believe the first variable here, before any further overthinking and overcomplicated paths, are the headphones you are wearing. I don't know the freq response curve of your focusrite bundle model, but I wouldn't be surprised to see a very "coloured" HiFi curve. I have two headphones that I trust even to do presets; BD 770 Pro 250 Ohm (if you need more juice, 80 Ohm is probably better), and Shure SRH840A 40 Omhs. The 770 is probably the most "flattish" of the two, but the Shure starts earlier to move on the bass range, and has a little notch on the bright side, which I love for cleans. When I do presets with these two headphones, I do mostly need small adjustments on the fly when using cabs or FOH, or just when changing location and volumes (that's pretty normal and expected). Of course depends on the base tone you use, but never had a "fizziness" issue with these headphones. If your base tone is some compressed modern HiGain, things are gonna be a bit more tricky to tame when using headphones for obvious reasons. o/

There is not a simple answer to this question. Many factors are playing here, so first thing to address is; what headphones are you using?

This is enough to suspect a faulty unit. The randomness could just be related to broken semiconductors conductance at the joints and in the body, that make them working when cold and dying when hot.

Yeah I believe he did that. There is no specific W7 driver for what I can see. It's just the same driver for W7, 8, 10 and 11. My bet on this is that new drivers aren't really tested or fully certified for the dusty Windows 7 (as they aren't for Windows 11)...

Quality also depends how many semitones you are downtuning. The lower the frequency, the worse it will sound. Downtuning to Eb will work just fine.

There is nothing broken in my Stomp that needs a repair, so I'd never send my unit just because they screwed up with an update. Last time I did that, the floor returned with more problems than before. Good luck with yours tho. :) Meh.

I told you the same thing at the very first answer. Just don't do this operation hours before a show, because things changes with WiFi. Isn't a static situation, so just do it just before to play. Now I'm done with answers. Since you are asking l6 directly, you are in good hands already. Good luck.

I already gave you all advices you need to make them work at best. All you need to do is to check the signal leds on the units (it's also explained in the manuals), and turn off WiFi stuff you don't need around. Put them on the floor, with some distance between them. Again, the more distance, the better (this will reduce noise in the signal). Keep the Transmitters plugged to their own stations until the very last minute, when it's time to play. This will allow the receivers to scan and assign what they believe it's the best channel. You can't really do anything more than that. There'll be places with zero issues, and everything will work flawless...and there'll be places that will give you some headache because heavy WiFi pollution. Unfortunately, you won't have any control over other people's WiFi, and these modern routers and extenders are sporting some aggressive WiFi power which isn't helping. As I've showed you, I can see the WiFi (with strong signal) of people that live more than 150ft from my house...

That Mixer only works with 2.4Ghz.

UHF stays for Ultra High Frequency, and it's standard for professional grade wireless microphones, IEMs and guitars. At this point I strongly suggest to do a bit of research. :)

Not really. I can't see any real benefit. Your main enemy is WiFi pollution at 2.4Ghz, and also the fact your G10 will potentially fight each other for room. These are device for studio, or small stages with just 1 or 2 of these. Five of them, running in a place with a busy 2.4Ghz, will result in a very unstable and unpredictable situation, doesn't matter the mixer. For consistency you still need to go UHF, not really WiFi.

1) I mean setting your router power output for the 2.4Ghz at lowest possible level. Check your router manual to find that option, which is available to the majority of brands and models. If your netgear is close to the Soundcraft, setting its output power to minimum, will assure an optimal signal level for the Mixer, but it will drop at a shorter distance for everything else around, which means less WiFi pollution on the stage. 2) WiFI pollution is a problem for any Wireless system which works in the 2.4Ghz, and in exactly same Channels used by any other WiFi device. The G10S offer 11 Channels, and Auto function, which will scan for less busy channel and connect to it. This happens only when Transmitter is connected to its base. It's important that you check every single base before to unplug the transmitters, to check if the left bar is showing a single solid Red Led. Two Red Leds, means the channel used by this station is a little busy. Three solid reds means this channel is very busy and will cause signal drops. If you have a WiFi scanner (even an app is fine), you could check the less busy Channel@2.4Ghz, and assign these channels to your receivers manually. Do not assign the same channel to all yours receivers, but try to give them a free channel each, better if there is another channel in the middle. Like for example; if Receiver 1 is on Channel 4, set Receiver 2 on Channel 6 or Channel 2 (if these are not too busy by other SSID). Let me say that you took a risky path buying five units, as these systems are very picky with Channel traffic, Noise, and Bandwidth overlapping. For busy stages you need pro grade UHF units, not really WiFi 2.4Ghz consumer stuff. :) Should they work on a consistent basis? No. It will always depend on the local WiFi pollution, and in the actual Channel assignment. You can improve that consistency by reducing pollution (like the power output trick on the router), shutting down WiFi on everything you don't need to use, and checking Channel quality with the 3 left leds on the receivers, and also with a WiFi scanner running on a Mac, a PC, or a Tablet/Smartphone. In my experience with these units, you want 1 solid red led when Transmitter is plugged, and 3 green leds when Transmitter is in use, with an acceptable blinking of the first green led on the top. As soon as you see the green leds dropping and wobbling to much, you know this channel is being too busy, or too noisy, and it will probably cause audio drops. Remember that, when you turn on your receivers, you want ALL transmitters, to be plugged in their receivers, and you need to wait for them to scan for the best channel. Since you have 5 of them, they will fight a bit so, again, keep an eye on the left leds and manual assign their channels if needed. Another trick could be to let receivers finding channels one at time, to reduce bandwidth overlapping between them at minimum. Let me post a screenshot of a WiFi scanner application (in this case my house), to show you how does look a very typical situation these days. You see how many device are present in the area (these are either routers, printers and anything else generating a SSID), and the channels they are using. You can also see how each device does take more than a channel, because of the wide bandwidth. You wouldn't want your G10s connecting to those busy channels, so having the scanner it will help you solving the most problematic stages or rooms (when Auto channel won't work as expected)...