Acetone Fuzzmaster FM-2 strange problem

[glops]

I'm a rare poster when it comes to debugging and technical matters but I've encountered a problem that I've never crossed before.

Most of my projects have been built on perf.  Lately, I've been really happy with buying boards from GGG, Musicpcb, CapsnSuch, Madbean...
I think Taylor's Gristliezer board was the first PCB I've built and it was really really pleasant only dealing with the off board wiring and not having to worry
about the components and their junctions.

Lately, I've been taking advantage of the numerous transfers and PCB layouts available on the web.  I etched the Acetone board from the Uzzay site and traced it
to make sure that their were no errors.  Everything looked good and I soldered all of the components and off board wiring in.  Took the wiring and hooked it up to
my prototyping breadboard apparatus and got some not so good sounding fuzz last night.  Tonight, I fiddled a little more and realized that there's a short in the output
wiring connection from the PCB.  Now, the fuzz is there.  Just like it should sound (built one of these on perf over a year ago).  Sounds great and huge...

Now this is the problem I am having.  When I have the guitar volume at max, the signal is muted a bit and sounds like you have made a back connection somewhere. This is on both bridge and neck pups.  When I roll either back I get full on fuzz.  It's like when the volume is maxed, the effect is off. When rolled back (maybe an 1/8 of the rotation), the fuzz is in full bloom. I've never read about this problem, could it be an obvious problem?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. All the voltages on the transistors read right. I am stumped...

[Mark Hammer]

Some octave-up units will "cave in" on themselves when faced with too hot a signal, only blooming as the input signal decays.  Are you experiencing anything remotely like that?

[glops]

No, I don't think it's that.  I get some crackling and weak effect sounds when the volume of the guitar is rotated from maximum to about an 1/8th lowered.  If I let a note ring out and rotate the volume knob at the same time, I get the crackling. When I switch the effect off, the volume knobs work fine.  When it is rolled back to a point, the fuzz sounds like it's fully working, turn up the volume and at a point, the signal is shunted and the only sound is the weak signal. 

This particular breadboard is one that I don't like to use very much.  Cheaper quality and the holes have done their time.  Going to redummy check a few things.  Hopefully, I can get it sometime today.

[glops]

Bumpers

Tonight I re-did a several solder joints, double checked all of the resistor values, electrolytic orientations, re-measured transistor voltages, etc.

Still, I have the same problem.  Is this just a peculiar problem that no one has encountered?  A curse?  Again, it sounds magnificent when I roll back my guitar volume knobs to the right spot.  Actually, it's like this:

Guitar vol knob maxed: barely a trace of a signal

Guitar vol knob rolled back to a point (about an 1/8 of the rotation): the fuzz has all of the sudden kicked in

The bridge pickup is better in response than the neck pickup.  The one odd thing is that the guitar volume knobs have a different response to this particular PCB than any other effect I've tested against/have.  Usually, when I roll back the guitar volume there is only a certain range where at max I get full fuzz, roll it back some - the fuzz is lifted a bit/cleans up and then when you start rolling back more the signal is too weak to push the effect.

This particular situation is different.  Guit vol maxed, no/little signal.  Rolled back a touch - Bam.  And then I have to roll back the knob almost 3/4's of the rotation to get it to start lessening it's effect on the circuit.  Does that make sense?