Weird crackling noise and problem with my rangefetzer build

[joelap]

I spent about 7 hours straight yesterday on this circuit.  perfed it up... even if the mistake was glaringly obvious I dont think I'd figure it out right now!  Basically, its a rangemaster and a fetzer/marsha valve in one pedal.  There's a weird crackling noise, almost like a circuit trace being lifted (but its perf so thats not the case) which is faint but still there.  I had this problem on the box when I used it previously, but it was more pronounced the last time.  Basically there's a switch to switch between rangemaster/fetzer, then a switch to switch between fetzer and marsha valve source caps/resistor.  The crackling noise is still there when I switch to fetzer, even though it is unbiased so far so no sound is coming out... I'm wondering if it could be in the 9Volt DC adaptor causing that?

Also, for some reason, I'm running the rangemaster into an AC30, and with the rangemaster on there is less gain, slightly less volume, and not as much treble as when it is off... and no, I dont have the 3PDT wired wrong or the LED.

Any ideas? 

[col]

When I run my rangemaster into most amps it blasts the shit out of them, however with one particular practice amp I have (a Laney hardcore max) it quietens it! I don't know why. No other pedal does this.

Col

[joelap]

Thats odd... I had another rangemaster board in this pedal and it working fine.  I wired this one up the same way, only with one side of the perf I included the fetzer valve as well.  I know it worked through my amp.  I'm not sure why it's doing what its doing!

[tonemonster]

I just finished a rangemaster clone and was going muts trying to find the source of a "wierd crackling noise".

-If it happens whilst turning the pot, it's a quirk of the rangemaster design having DC on the pot.

-If the noise is constant ( mine was like bacon frying in a pan.) it's likely to be a bad transistor.

[joelap]

Bad transistor: I bought mine from smallbear and I think he tests them before selling them.  The noise is persistent like a bacon frying sound actually...