need help/questions on my first build tweeko

[sixty2strat]

Just built a tweeko fuzz/booster kit form Smallbear. Went fine worked on the 2nd try....not bad for a 1st attempt. I really like the tone..sort of jeff beck heart full o soul ish to even early sabbath. But that is when it is switched on...when off it seems to choke my top end of and reduce my out put. looked at the diagram and it appear to be  tru bypass( not an expert so I might be wrong. also the gain pot seems to do very little in the way of controlling the amount of fuzz, it just seems to get more compressed as it goes up. So now my question ....is this the nature of the beast .. a simple basic diy or the far more possible what might I have messed up ....every thing was doubble checked. what migh I do to tweek it or fix my mistake. really like the tone,switched off but off it is unusable to gig with

[petemoore]

True bypass is TB
 if wired right will not affect tone in bypass mode
 k...plug cables in, and with DMM on beep mode, test continuity to middle lugs of switch [switched to bypass mode] and through the output cable, if you find a place where the continuity is lost...there's your problem.
 Been so long since I had a Tweek=O, but I think the gain knob should work like a regular gain knob, attenuating the gain. ..
 Test the voltages of the Transistors C B and E pins from ground, and post them here, and better...read at GEO about transistor biasing and debugging pages here and there.
 Miswires are hard to find.
 from the Descript. it sounds like the thing is amplifying...[should get louder than a cable only]...if it's amping the signal [boosting], more than likely the transistor is biased good enough...with all fixed resistors, it's probably a 'working or nonworking' affair, the presence of boost sound is a pretty good indicator of a properly biased circuit, voltage readings being more conclusive tho.

[sixty2strat]

Thanks for the suggestion on the switch.....there was a small strand of sodder like a hair, that was connecting the 2 lugs on the switch.


Still get no range of controll with the gain knob

[petemoore]

I'd look for a miswire...
 As much as I dislike typing it, much less doing it, if it's wired right, it has to work.
 IIRC I built up at least two Tweek-O's before I got one that worked properly...the schem is correct, it's all basically there, but the needle is hard to find in the hay stack...you will probably develop methods to quicken the process.
  I look at the schem...
 Well that pot is tucked in the circuit, you'd have to lift one of the leads from a pot lug to test the pot itself, but I doubt there's a problem with the pot.
 That section of the schematic would take some disconnecting for the DMM to be much use...there's got to be something going on in the circuit wiring to cause the pot not to alter the gain.\
 I've found cold solders before by going and checking every solder joint whether I have to go from bottom to top of the baord with the test leads [a real pain], or even inspecting the joints with a magnifier...just pokking around with the DMM on beep or resistance mode, blindly, taking readings and mulling them over while looking at the schem...mathman, trying to find new ways to apply the meter, and looking for alternate paths which give false readings [in circuit testing...I've never read about how to do it to debug...PITA but works sometimes], the only way to easily test resistors is with them out of a circuit, or with one end open, which is a P, and I'd surely try other methods first, because I'm a messy re-solder-er.

[sixty2strat]

if I put the diodes in backwards would that have caused this. I was a bit unlcear and looks at the scematic and checked the net I think I got it right but?

Also if my conection to the board from the pot was bad would it work but not have pot controll

[petemoore]

each of two diodes facing different direction, [back to back they calls it]
 --->l----
 ---l<----
 You could check the contibuity of the diodes to the 250k pot, and to the other side...IIRC thats a cap that goes to the base.
 Ive sat there till my eyes go haff crossed, then wake up, look again, and the problem seems too obvious to have been missed.