My plan is to take the 2204 circuit and ... bypassing the TS and cascading gain stages ... This is to facilitate some pedal preamps I'd like to use with the amp. Really didnt want to put an effects loop in this.
What you describe is a perfect Use Case for a passive effects loop of Send and Return jacks, where the Return jack has a switched contact and "normals" a connection from Send to Return when nothing is plugged in to the Return jack.
The only drawback (besides not being a great, full-featured loop) is that every decade or so, you will need to clean that switched contact to ensure it doesn't become an intermittent connection.
The
Silver Jubilee has such a Passive Effects Loop with normaling at the Return jack.
You might say, "
Yeah, but I want to be able to switch between using the Pedal Preamp
and the amp's preamp."
The slick guys don't do the complicated switching inside the amp, they use some kind of
pedalboard switching system to handle that chore. The Amp Input, Send and Return are all connected at the switcher, with loops setup to use the Amp Preamp, Pedal Preamp, pedals, and any combination thereof.
The really good (but expensive) ones like G3 incorporate buffering & level adjusting (as needed) to help solve relative-level issues.