Caja Azul Volume problem

[Radamus]

I built the Caja Azul project a while ago and never got it working correctly. I had some free time so I thought I might take another crack at it, but I don't know how to proceed. From what I remember, all of the voltages checked out, but if there's a need, I'll post them. I have to go borrow my Dad's DMM again. Anyway, the circuit seems to function correctly, major amplification from both opamp stages, minor amplification from the transistors. But then there's the place where all of those 56k resistors come in, and with the audio probe, I get to listen to my volume slowly die away after each successive resistor. I am assuming that there are many successful builds of this, so it's probably not the resistors. I checked the gain resistors, and they are correct, so the amplification should be enough. I haven't checked the vref, yet, but, as I recall, gain is usually set by the resistor, not by a reference voltage. The synthesized notes sound just fine, except for some tracking issues, but I built it because I liked the fuzz anyway.

Is my problem excessive resistance and signal splitting at the very end, or have I made some amplification error here? Also, the 1M resistor (R10) persuades a lot of the sound to go into the 4013 and I get a pretty big volume drop here as well. Can I modify that to a smaller value or should I look for a real problem? And is it cool if I change c10 to 10uf?

I don't have much trouble with fuzz units and volume usually because they have such excessive gain, so I'm pretty confused.

Thanks in advance.

[oskar]

Yes. You need to post the voltages, the more the better, and also link to the project/schematics. Is it pcb or vero. Sockets?
Just follow the "what to do when it doesn't work" concept. You'll most likely end up there anyway...   

Also, the 1M resistor (R10) persuades a lot of the sound to go into the 4013 and I get a pretty big volume drop here as well.

Pin 11 of the 4013 doesn't really sink any current or shouldn't. CMOS stuff!

[Radamus]

It's on perfboard. I'm sorry if there's something I didn't post initially. I did use sockets and I have been pretty careful not to leave the circuits in. The weird thing is that everything is working. It's just that I'm either not getting enough amplification earlier on, which is hard to believe, or there's too much resistance at the end. My thinking is that if everything seems to work, I might just need to cut those resistors down. Not perfect, but it might work.

I'll post voltages a little later. I don't have time right now, but from what I remember, hot pin was 8.4, ground pin was 0, every other pin was 4._, except for one or two that were 1-2v. I'll be more specific later. Should I inlude the 4013 voltages? It works just fine. No volume problems on the synth side.

Thanks

[oskar]

Just make sure you measure the battery voltage in and out of the circuit.

[Radamus]

Okay. I had to solder the battery snap back on. Never buying cheap battery snaps again.

Here goes:
Battery:7.97

4558
1-4.09
2-4.17
3-3.8
4-0
5-4
6-4
7-4.6
8-7.93

I'm going to omit the 4066 switching and the 4013 for now as they are both working correctly.

Q1
C 4
B .4
E 0 (gnd)

Q2
C .05
B .16
E 0

Q3 (really only matters for 4016)
C 0
B .3
E 0

vb - 4v

I think that Q2 is probably a little low on the collector, but I'm not sure if its purpose is amplification or just buffering. It's collector on the schematic is not actually connected to any power for the most part, so that's really not that unbelievable. I know that the synth part comes through very clearly with Q3 having very low collector voltage.

I know the battery's a little low, but it's the best I've got right now.

I hope that helps. I'm no expert, but everything looks about right from what I know. Should Q2 be amplifying? and if so, where is it supposed to get that voltage?
Thanks

[Mark Hammer]

Okay. I had to solder the battery snap back on. Never buying cheap battery snaps again.

http://hammer.ampage.org/files/DIY-snaps.pdf

[Radamus]

Okay. I had to solder the battery snap back on. Never buying cheap battery snaps again.

http://hammer.ampage.org/files/DIY-snaps.pdf

I've been saving my dead 9vs for that reason. Thanks!

[Radamus]

Do any of the voltages scream "wrong"? It all seems to be correct to me, which leads me to believe that I might have used an incorrect resistor somewhere. The audio probe didn't tell me that, necessarily. Is there something in more general terms that I can look for while audio probing? What kind of gain should I be looking at with volume maxed?