how do i stop the hogs foot from distorting?

[fatfoohy]

Hello again internet, I have a hog's foot bass booster that i built for my bass, I love the effect, but whenever i turn up the signal on my bass, at about the last 80-90% of the pot's rotation(on my bass), the circuit distorts. I assume that it is feeding to much into the transistor, but i may be wrong, I'm a little bit of a noob( I wired the volume for it backwards). I would love any suggestions, I was thinking a pulldown resistor, but im not so sure that would work. I'm gonna fire up my brand new weller tomorrow anyways to run it through the paces, so any ideas would be great. Thanks!

[fatfoohy]

ok, i just realized i had the right idea but the wrong terminology, I have a 10k and a 100k trimpot on hand, If i soldered that between the input and the input cap, with pin 1 being input, 2 and 3 being tied to input cap, should this solve my problem? i figured that i could just adjust the trimpot to where i no longer got distortion, thanks

[MikeH]

Yes, but I'd wire it up more like a volume control; Lug 3- from guitar, lug 2 (center) to input cap, and lug 1 to ground.  That will adjust signal volume, doing it the other way will mess with tone/frequency.

Basically it's like you're putting the same volume control that's in your bass and just sticking it in the box with the booster.  Oh, and I'd use the 100k.