take a feed from Pin 7 of IC2 (the opamp connecting to the PNP), hook it up to the Base of a NPN, and wire V+ through the Collector and LED from the Emitter for a simple-yet-handy compression indicator. score!
just re-read my last posts, a power amp IC does seem like overkill in hindsight.
my aforementioned distortion was caused by the board shorting against the treble switch. really is the most obvious stuff sometimes.
now to fix that damn ticking when it's bypassed.