Have you tried different cables? True bypass, the signal goes in jack, across the switch and back out. It never goes through the circuit. Could it be your amp?
Woohoo! Nice. I have no electronics background either. I got into this because I needed a nicer compressor pedal for less than a new one could be purchased. That was over 12 years ago. 🤣
Yeah, it was a good watch, I thought. Kind of again shows, they used what they had or didn’t have. Opamps were expensive, so they switched to transistors, stuff like that.