freestompboxes.org

I got it working last night and was happy for a while but after comparing it to originals on youtube I realized mine has nothing like the "violin like sustain" it should have but instead sounds hard edged and brittle with not enough gain. I first tried it out without the clipping caps (C6 & C7) and it sounded awful but things improved when I put a 1uf cap in as C7, however I didn't hear any change when I put in a 1uf cap as C6? which leads me to suspect that one of the gain stages isn't working, maybe a bad diode (D3 or D4). Any ideas

Did you build it on a replica triangle board as you are displaying on the left?

I recommend you put the caps back and measure, then post the voltage readings for Collector Base and Ground of all 4 transistors here for us, please.