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Reflowed everything that wasn't under a pot. I have 8.8 on pin 11. Not sure if it was a bad reading earlier, or a bad solder joint. C16 and R31 are about 8.8 also.

In retrospect, I'd bet it was a bad reading.  If that joint had been bad I think you would at least notice a difference in sound after reflowing it.  That LM13700 would've been operating in pretty strange conditions with that pin floating.

Does the effect simply cut the low end as part of the sound? Maybe its just supposed to sound like it does? Everything seems to function fine, but the bass disappears, compared to when bypassed.

I can't really answer that, as I've never built it, but it is a filter circuit after all.  Hopefully someone else with direct experience will chime in.  I gave most of your resistors a good looking over Friday night, but I'd still suggest you audit your caps.

Also, I used 16v electrolytics, but since this has a tc1044, should I have used 25v or 50v caps instead?

I don't think the charge pump and power rail caps really get more than 9V apiece because of the way they are stacked -- and if one of them fails I'm guessing the entire effect will stop working.  C6 is in an odd spot where it's charging and discharging to control the envelope.  If it failed, the envelope filter would stop working, but it would not affect the S&H mode.  I would be nervous with 16V electrolytics in there, just because I know the entire effect is running at +/-9V (18V), but I don't think they would cause the problem you're having.

You should be getting somewhere near +8V on IC1 pin 11 (LM13700) and you're only showing -0.07.  I'd reflow that solder joint at minimum.  Test to see if you're getting +8V on the positive leg of C16.  R31 looks good, but test both sides of it, too.

By the way, are you having the brightness problem in both modes?

I have now decided to quit my job and spend the next six months writing "Soft Clipping: A Novel".

Cool!  Glad you found it.  The R41-R42 issues sounds like it would've been tricky to find.  Good eye!

I'd swap the electrolytics before I binned it.

You've got a lot of bad voltages on your CD4049UBE, CD4013 and MN3007.  Voltage on pin 7 of IC3 should vary, but that may just be a symptom.  Based on the fact that your MN3007 (IC9) pin 5 isn't grounded (0V), I'm guessing you may have some bad solder joints or a poor connection to ground.  Try reflowing the joints on all those pins and triple check for shorts.

Can you post good photos of both sides of the board?

Do we need a tea thread?

Nah, I pretty much sewed it up in that reply

Yes, thank you!

Reversed or damaged cap on C16 or C17?  Have you swapped the charge pump yet?

I am drinking a pint of tea as I watched that.

My wife brought home PG tips for me the other day, but I thought it was, well, shite.  How do you feel about Yorkshire Gold?

General Guitar Gadgets has one.

I do wish we had a more agreed upon vocabulary for this sort of thing, though.  I know someone mentioned earlier that "transparent" is just false -- it is, yes, but I was under the impression that we used it to mean "no Tube Screamer-style mids hump" or "no significant EQ change other than the added harmonics you would expect from an overdrive".

Gritty, fizzy, smooth -- I would like to think that those are terms we can agree on.  You know them when you hear them, right?  But do we have further terms that can define them so that we know we mean the same thing?  Is it the quality of the distortion or a function of the EQ or both?

Compressed, again, I think most of us know what this means and can explain that we are talking about the dynamic range: soft sounds made louder and vice versa, added sustain, etc.  But that got me thinking about "touch-sensitive".  Is touch-sensative the opposite of compressed because your dynamics are preserved?  Or does compression add touch-sensitivity because it amplifies the subtleties of your playing?

Organic?  Well, at least the other terms are trying to describe something.  Organic always struck me as the ultimate b.s. term.  You can say it and no one will challenge you, because by saying it you are showing that you understand the subtleties of tone at a level that dwarfs those who don't know what you mean by it.  Even if it means "doesn't obscure the original sound of the guitar and amp", which is the only definition I'm willing to entertain, there has to be a better word for that.

Just thinking out loud.  We should have a common vocabulary to discuss tone -- not everything about sound is subjective.  What terms can we agree on?

Despite the complexity of this effect, there is a relatively short path from input to output.  This path contains three high-pass RC filters, all of which should be letting your guitar's full frequency through.  If the low cut/brightness  you described is affecting both modes (filter/S&H), I would concentrate on debugging that very simple input->output path first.

The most obvious reason you may be losing bass would be incorrect component values.  Triple check your resistor color codes and your capacitor codes.  (Concentrate on the components in the top left quadrant of the schematic for now.) What values did you use for C2 and C5?

If you really want to get some help, post some good photos of the board.  Since your board mostly works, voltages might not be necessary, but they never hurt.  Good luck!

Being from Yorkshire I can describe anything using a maximum of two words; 'shite' or 'not shite'.

Based on my knowledge of EPL football, I thought it was either "brilliant" or "rubbish".

Cool -- glad you found it.  Have fun!

Oh and I tried doing a yellow border over a black pedal it was so trasparent you had to hold it an angle to even see it

Colors other than black will always be somewhat translucent using inkjet or laser printing on waterslide decals.  As a result, you cannot effectively use light-colored artwork on a dark enclosure without moving to a more complicated printing system.

If you want to use colored artwork, your best bet is to use a white enclosure.  Other, light colors will work for enclosures, but the color of the enclosure will bleed through the waterslide printing, potentially changing the color of your artwork.  I have had good luck with silver and bare aluminum enclosures, too.