Silvertone 1344-a gut shot

[Willabe]

So i had that cap in backwards just as that schematic did.  However, flipping it didn't change much.

If the E-cap was in backwards, you probably killed the cap.

Put in a new cap, might work.   

[munkeyboy]

Sorry, I tried... at least with an old cap i had laying around.   Entirely possible that was bad too tho.  Time for more caps.

In the past few hours I've been trying different things with this circuit.  There was no sound change except when I swapped 390k for 390r in case the schematic was wrong (can't tell if they are k's or r's).   That went pretty bad... cutting out all over the place.   Oddly tho I've changed a lot of the resistors in the bias/grid, I can't get the bias tool to read anything but 20ma, unless I turn on tremolo then it goes to 30ma.  That wasn't the case a few days ago.  I must have changed something somewhere and not put it back.  I'm still unsure what part of this odd circuit to change to get the power tube bias correct, if at all.

Also more test with different pickups/guitars.  Old teisco gold foils clean up nicer than p90s.  Humbuckers distort on less 1 on the amp volume knob.  Using the guitar volume allows the signal to clean up okay, but have to go down to 3 or 4.  Can still hear that fizz (almost a fuzz pedal type distortion) as a separate layer.

I think I need to revisit the preamp section again or give up :)   

[shooter]

I must have changed something somewhere and not put it back

when Tshooting for a living that will set you back days n your boss will not like you 

I make up "change" sheets when I'm inside something swapping things, here's an example I use for SE PA sections. 

[munkeyboy]

So...  ALL OF THIS seems to be a result of me wanting to keep all the values as I originally found them inside the amp.    I thought that since this was a danelectro and not the silvertone 1344, slight variations would be expected. I wanted to know if it sounded good the way it was designed.  Well I got my answer.   

That first preamp tube 12sj7 was running about 30v on pin 8.   Seemed way too low.  Double checked all my R values according to what I documented on first opening the amp.   What I put in the circuit was right according to my doc and the old Rs I pulled out.  However, that low voltage can't be correct for proper amp operation.   Looking at other 6sj7s examples, I saw 75vdc to 110vdc on pin 8.   Way different.   So i replaced those 75k Rs with 56k and lo-and-behold sooo much better.   Still not perfect, but I actually get cleans on low volume, even with active humbuckers.  Pin 8 is around 46.5vac now.  I suspect i just need to bite the bullet and redo all the Rs based on the silvertone 1344 schematic.   

I wish I new the story behind this amp.  I don't know if it was some sort of failed prototype or someone's failed attempt at servicing it.  There were also 2 or 3 resistors hanging out not accounted for compared to the silvertone circuit.  Still don't know what they do, so I've removed them.   But I feel like an idiot for not putting 2 and 2 together to start.   

Thanks to you guys for guiding me even if I didn't listen right away