SOLVED Aion VH Drive Channel - Possible crosstalk issues

[lowpitch]

What's good, my dudes. Having trouble with the Aion VH Drive Channel build. It's a pedal version of the Ampeg VH-140C preamp.

With the volume pot fully CCW I'm still getting a very faint signal. It's a little distorted, quite ugly sounding, sounds a little like crosstalk to me.
It seems to originate from before any of the controls because none of the pots have any effect on the tone or level of the signal. It always stays the same.
Turning the volume pot CW brings up the actual output from the pedal as intended but it overlaps with the other signal. At max volume this isn't much of an issue but at lower settings both signals can clearly be heard and it's not a good sound.

You can find the schematic, the board layout, wiring and a picture of the actual build below. If you need more pictures let me know.

I also uploaded a short clip with actual audio: Link to SoundCloud
You'll first hear the volume pot on 0, then volume pot turned up slightly, then maxed out and finally on 0 again. For the first two segments I bumped the volume up by 20 dB in post because they were so quiet in contrast to the pot maxed out.

Is there anything in the schematic that might explain this behavior? Or could it be a crosstalk issue due to the PCB layout? This is only my second build so I'm not too knowledgable yet about any of this stuff.

There's also issues with squealing at high gain and volume levels, might be due to my wiring, it's all very close together. A buffer pedal in front fixes this so I can live with that for now.

 

[lowpitch]

Did some more testing and the crosstalk - which I'm now certain is what's happening - changes in level when I move the output signal wire around. So I'll be redoing my I/O wiring with shielded cables and try to get them as far away from the board as possible. Hoping this will also cut down on oscillations. I'll post my results when I'm done

 

[Nostradoomus]

Yep that should help a lot. Run the in/out under the board as far from any IC as you can. Shorten the wire runs as much as possible.

I'm kind of surprised a high gain circuit like this has no wiring tips!

 

[lowpitch]

Redid the I/O wiring with shielded wire under the PCB to the sides (straight down the middle had more crosstalk). It's improved but not by much to be honest. Outside of the enclosure I had the best results when I physically moved the jacks opposite to where they are now so the wires don't even cross the PCB. Might be an idea to put the whole thing in a bigger enclosure so I can move the jacks down.

 

[lowpitch]

Just one final update. I built another one of these and moved the I/O jacks to the sides by the daughter board in order to avoid crossing the main PCB with all the ICs. Happy to say this fixed the crosstalk issue