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With the Kingslayer you could do a diode lift just by using an on-off-on switch, but without the clipping diodes I would assume you would get no distortion because I don't think the op amp would clip on its own, if it does it would be very minor and you would just probably be boosting volume.  You could increase gain by making R10 larger and making R8 smaller.  But, I think it would also lose some thickness in the tone, so you would have to mod other parts to compensate, probably increasing C7, maybe C6 to let more bass through. 

I'm not a guitar teacher, but have been in a bunch of bands and have played for a while.  I think the first thing to ask yourself is: What are your goals?  Do you want to jam with people?  Do you want to just hang at home and shred your balls off?  Or something else?

You can get a ton of mileage off the pentatonic scale, to the point where you can totally fake it till you make it.  I actually generally stick with pentatonic because people get it, it works over most everything, and when you dial it in and understand the patterns you can really express yourself musically. 

Modes are rad though.  I remember the first time I learned about modes, I think I was listening to Flying a Blue Dream by Satriani... It was like this is spacey and moody thing... and he's using a different pattern then the key it's in!  What is happening?  I went to my guitar teacher (Swedish hair metal dude, oh those were good times) and he said, "It's lydian dude... chicks dig it!".  To be fair he said that about everything.  But modes are also hard... when do you use which mode?

For me the best thing was to buy a couple of backing track CD's.  I think they are still around, might even be available on streaming services.  They list the key they are in and you can just jam some epic solo sessions.  I would just solo over these tracks for hours.

Learn licks, but also analyze them and understand how they fit into the scales you are learning.  What are the base shapes used to formulate these licks.  This will help with shifting between the different patterns.  I feel that from there your understanding of the guitar and scales and connecting them will increase.

Once you can jam over everything then with the simple stuff, at least for me, the other stuff will fall into place more naturally and you can get all crazy with the modes evoke a vibe.  Everyone learns differently and has different goals, so this might not work for you at all.  But maybe?...  Good luck dude!  Hope this helps.

all I can say is... try em both, pick the best one and post it here 

Kinda need more information.  Do you prefer Fender, Vox or Marshall style tones?  How much power do you require (sounds like quite a bit)?  Do you like bright or warm sound?  Particular tube types you like or dislike, etc.

IMO it's not really possible to have an amp that does all three of those things really well because of the design compromises involved.  Tubey clean and wicked lead tones just don't go together, unfortunately.  You can have basically have the first two or the last two qualities on your list, but not all three.

I'd look for an amp that does clean and break-up and then go pedals from there.

That's a great point. I was in the market for this exact setup and it is probably not out there at a reasonable price. The closest I found was that Mesa Tripple Crown, but the clean was almost too clean and the high gain channel was really metal. The drive channel was nice though. A while back I was playing a Carbon Legacy which was cool, but sucked with singles and the 2 gain channels were almost out of control. The clean took pedals like a champ though!

Suggestions are good and really help narrow the playing field and take those to a brick and mortar store (if you can find one) and give them a play through. See what you like.

That info came from Peter when I emailed him. I haven't finished the build myself. I do think you might be able to buy the correct pot from Peter. I believe he said that once on the patron page.

Mesa Tripple Crown. I tried on liked it a lot but went with a Lonestar, which was more what I was going for. The Tripple Crown gets pretty metal. I have a Tubemeister 18. The clean too clean, sounds sterile to my ears. Maybe it's better in the higher end Tubemeisters.

I'm almost mad at you how great your first etch turned out  looks awesome

Good find on the TQ2-5v! I have the same problem with my Monarch build. That didn't even remotely cross my mind, thanks for that. My Tiger schematic does not have the mod, wonder if my files are old. Does yours include the Dragon files? I never got those either.

Wow nice work!! I'd be down for group buy if you do one.

My technique is to use solder lug style pots and attach them with extra leads. Makes them really easy to switch out and when you are happy replace them with pcb mounts, or not.

I have a Mr Black Solid State Echo Chamber and it's got a straight forward tap tempo, as in no subdivisions. I did open it up and it looks like the tap is implemented with the fv-1 chip. If I remember correctly I saw 1 fv-1 chip and 2 24LC32A chips in there.  This is off memory from a couple moths ago, but it looked like the tap was hooked up to one chip. It's quite a fun pedal. So it might be possible to get that going.

Nordstrand NVT alnico 3.

I posted in the strat thread, I'll repeat here. Disclaimer... I am a friend... but it has nothing to do with my love for Nordstrand pickups.  They are a bit pricey, but the tone is incredible. I can not recommend them more.

I gotta plug Nordstrand pickups here. Disclaimer, I am friend... but I attribute that to the reason I discovered these pickups, not why I love them. Yeah they are expensive, but hands down the best pickups I've ever played. Vintage vibe with enough output and plays well with everything.

I have their strat NVS alnico 3 pickups 2 of my strats.

I got an extra fiery red horse from an osh park run I did a while back that you are welcome to.

I was also told that the tiger board "requires a modification", but didn't hear any more than that. He said he would do the mod to the boards he was sending out, but thats the last I heard on the issue.

I got a Tiger board from his a bit ago where he did the mod.  So it looks like he added a 200k trim pot lug 2 to the 33k resistor location.  Lug 1 connects to the a 47k resistor into the 33k spot.  Then lug 1 has this carbon film looking thing with a single black band that connects to the 220k spot.  No idea what this is. 

I tried to get a good picture but no dice.. here is the blurry crap I took.


Haven't had time to build it so no idea what it does.