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Yeah swap the led. It's an unfortunate limitation of letting the led be a depth indicator that I had to push the forward voltage to the limit. Try that first, then let's see if we can track down the squeal.

R33 is a current limiting resistor at the 9V input. It is used for noise reduction. 10R is fairly small and it's possible for high-current to simply pull too much across it, generate heat, and blow the resistor.

You could replace it with a jumper, or alternatively use a larger value (e.g. 100R) or higher wattage.

You are extremely unlikely to have damaged anything except the resistor.

When you say gain, are you talking about the volume trimpot? It's a voltage divider at the end of the circuit; it shouldn't affect anything to do with the tremoloing (it's always a 50M/100K voltage divider with vactrol 1 regardless of where it's set).

When you say "effect" you do mean tremolo in general, right?

Since there's squealing in center and down, I'm going to assume that a big part of the problem lies in Q3 (Q3 is out of the circuit when your switch is up). I've experienced some very, very high pitched squealing with the volume maxed (it's why I used FETs instead of BJTs), but it's VERY high pitched and IME only when it's literally 0 impedance on the volume pot. This sounds like something different.

Going forward, it'll be best to pull Q2 and/or Q3 to work on one band at a time. Also, audio probe through to make sure nothing's going wrong at Q1.

Voltage look okay though the voltage swing at pin 7 seems a little low (mine is closer to 2-7 volts).

It's possible that the indicator LED won't go off completely. It would be more likely to do so in square wave, but it might always be dim. It sounds a little (and from the voltage looks) like yours might be kind of bright all the time, though?

Triple check your LEDs in the LFO section, too. The Madbean library has the square pad as the anode on the vactrols but it's the cathode on the indicator LED. So your cathode should be to the right.

I'd like to fix and track down the squealing from Q3 first, so pull Q2 and set the depth at max while working on that. See where the squealing is introduced.

You could make an LFO that can be turned on by an envelope circuit. Use a normally off momentary and when you switch it, your guitar signal passes through a rectifier and increases the depth control. The simplest way woukd be to use a really good optocoupler [I suggest the H11F1 because of its speed, price, and low on resistance] with very low on resistance. Feed your guitar signal through the rectifier to turn on an LED. Put the LRD in series with the depth control's point of contact with the variable resistance element. When you play, your guitar signal drops the resistance into the depth control as long as you keep playing and the momentary is held. The decay resistor/capacitor combination in the rectifier keeps the LED on for a set amount of time ... You could easily get a couple seconds out of it.

I think you could also do it that you block the LFO's voltage source with the envelope control, but then you run into a problem where you need to know whether the LFO can start running within a handful of milliseconds.

The main concern is that you want to make sure that whatever is controlling the volume of the dry path is fully loud when the depth pot is blocked. So if you use the Tremulus Lune's LFO, you have to arrange the dry path so that the LDR sends signal to ground rather than is in series with the signal path ... Otherwise, when the depth drops, the LDR goes dark, and your signal cuts out. Also, you might have to rejigger the depth control.

I'm on a mobile, so apologies if some of this is unclear.

The best way to do this is to have the momentary connect lug 3 to the intersection of R16 and C5. Put a trim pot in between to dial in how fast it ramps up.

Doing it this way lets the slam switch work completely independent of the position of the Feedback control and also works at zero on the feedback pot ... Otherwise signal is dumped to ground by C12.

This is a long shot, but are the correct Vactrols installed?  There are many different flavors and they do behave differently.

It's the right one.  Buuuuut where's the blue dot?

No, that's right. Hmm. :/

If I remember correctly the dot is facing down with that wire going into the square pad. Did I mess that up?

Great etches!

This is a long shot, but are the correct Vactrols installed?  There are many different flavors and they do behave differently.

It's the right one.  Buuuuut where's the blue dot?

P.s. I say all that, I'll remind everyone, as a guy with a welt on his forehead from the crap he reads on TGP and the gut shots of $200 overdrive.

I want you folks to think very carefully about what it takes, sociologically and economically, to allow the possibility of a "Just This Guy" -- someone who didn't exist a hundred years ago -- and decide if you think that making $50 on an acoustic gig is worth it.

...

Maybe many of you didn't ever sell your pedals or play your music at "Just This Guy" prices, but this forum would have only the tiniest fraction of members if those conditions didn't exist ... and everyone here has benefited from the hobbyist and booteeker culture through lower component costs, cheap prototyping, and simple things like the availability of 3PDTs. The concepts of free culture are one reason expertise is free and plentiful, and if you've ever benefited from a lengthy description in a forum post or read an article on Geofex, you've benefited from exactly the same attitude that led to the use of words like "bottom feeder" and "damage."

Also, in any discussion of the economics of quality, I think it's worth recalling the mighty Betamax and digital tape (interestingly, both developed by Sony). How many of you own(ed) anything in these formats, which were vastly superior technology compared with VHS and cassettes? Digital tape was suppressed by people not wanting to digitize music, and consequently became expensive; instead, the world embraced cassettes, which were cheap but absolute crap and capable of easy duplication. Betamax had better resolution than VHS but was more costly, but they thought they could force better technology to beat Cheap.

This is because

Humans are bad at assessing value.

There are always people willing to pay a premium for Premium, but they are a small fraction of the population.

I had a bunch of other stuff typed up, but it would have probably just piss a lot of people off. 

well now I wanna hear it. I'm always interested in honing my skills at pissing people off. It's, like, my one god-given talent. I often do it accidentally with spectacular results.

every thing works perfectly that i can tell just the depth pot is bunch up at the end ill take some readings tonight

thank you for response

This is normally what happens when a pot is wired backwards or something, but obviously that's not what's going on here. Is there any gradation at all in the depth, or is it like a switch? I'm trying to figure out if somehow a different taper would help in very rare cases, but it's not like this is an untested LFO.   

Oh, man is this a thorny subject.

I can explain the ultimate source of the disconnect:
Artists will create whether they're paid to or not.

On the buying end: Some people are just insensitive and don't consider what other peoples' time is worth. Some don't think that an artist's time, specifically, is worth anything or even consider that it takes time and expertise to perform well*. Some people actually do take advantage. Some people are just ignorant and don't know what services cost.

[*Quick aside on this: Most people assume that artistic talent is innate and have no concept of the amount of work that goes into it: practicing for 12 hours a day, touring, writing, rehearsing, etc. And for very complicated reasons, this view is encouraged even by musicians. It's mythology. end aside.]

On the artist side, everyone's in this for different reasons. Sometimes these reasons overlap, because everyone's different.

For some people, fame is actually their goal. This is the Pop Star. Not that they're less artistic, but that art is their chosen method of achieving celebrity. They will play for free if you can give them an audience. They'll let a manager take advantage if they can give them an audience. They want people to buy them, not necessarily their art.

The far more complicated version of that is those who prefer playing music to any other life. This is the Artist. Money is only important in as much as it lets them continue playing. So gas money to get to the next gig is important. Enough food to keep you from fainting on stage. Buying strings before you buy dinner. I know several people like this. They know they won't become famous, and they won't sell out on their art to increase their revenue. They simply believe so strongly that what they create is important that they are willing to sacrifice everything toward creating it. They will play for free if they have to, and they will play for little to no audience if they have to. They will probably dislike it. They might feel a little dirty about taking guarantee money but they will fret about people not buying albums or downloading songs for free. They want people to buy their art.

Some people see music as a job. This is the business person. We all know people like this. Some gig to make a little bit of money on the side. Some do well enough that it's not just a side job. Some are good enough that they can do it full time. This group never wants to play for free, and is usually VERY resentful of people in the previous two categories playing for free, because they see that as a direct attack on their business model and can't or won't compete in that way. They want people to buy their services.

Then there's Just This Person. The one who can play for free because it's not their job. Doesn't care about money, maybe not even in general. Usually doesn't tour, except maybe for a couple weeks a year. Performing is fun, so there might be a gig or two a month. Not "selling" anything, even if there are recordings on the merch table. If someone pays for the gig, then that's fine, but playing for free is also fine if that's what's convenient. It's somewhere north of casual, has the appearance of being professional on some level, but whatever the motivation is, music is sort of compartmentalized. This person isn't necessarily untalented, either. I'd bet that this category is doubly frustrating for the business person, because not only are they willing to undercut on prices but they don't even have the all-consuming urge for fame or artistic-y-ness that the Pop Star and The Artist have.

(Guess which category(ies) I am!)

Basically, there's no way to "combat" the issue. Decide what you're worth, and don't accept less. Seek out opportunities that present themselves. Educate people if you must (we can't accept X because our costs are Y), politely decline, and be nice to people. It's a big world and while there are always people who will try to take advantage, there are also people who insist on paying. If someone pays but tries to squeeze you, negotiate back. But decide what you're worth as a musician and stick to it.

One last thought: The 20th century was a massive anomaly for artists. Mozart died somewhat poor (not as bad as in Amadeus, but not exactly comfortable, either) despite having the patronage of royalty. Bach was employed by a very wealthy and powerful church and was a celebrity but wasn't even really middle class. Professional musicians were rare, and professional musicians who weren't homeless street performers (essentially talented beggars) were even rarer. Shakespeare was one of the most successful writers in history, immensely famous as a playwrite even in his own time, and also enjoyed the patronage of royalty, but died middle class and probably lower on the ladder than his father. One of the most famous musicians in Irish history was homeless until he was 50.

The 20th century brought things like copyright law, licensing, and the ability to enforce it as a new form of income, and produced previously unimaginable income for artists of all sorts. The concept of art as a commodity was fairly new ... prior to the 1800s (Charles Dickens and Samuel Clemens were both driving forces in changing this), the way art became someone's profession was usually that it was a leisure time activity for the already-wealthy (or their children) or an artist was spectacular enough that they had the patronage of the wealthy, patronage being outsized payment for labor to ensure an artist's basic needs were taken care of so they could create art for people that couldn't afford to pay them what they should actually cost.

To be honest, I was never able to guess out what could make Bill's act the way it did,and I don't know if he fixed it. Is your wave pot also no working? What are your voltages like on the op amp? Does the LED blink?

Wow, they're 19mm tall. Sheesh. My dream of using an Ernie ball VP for my wah pedal is getting increasingly remote,
.