Well I just spent some time going over by board checking all the usual suspects and found nothing out of the ordinary which was what I expected as it had worked for a short time.
So I decided to swap out all the leds and ic's...............and guess what???????????
YES we're back in business
Everything seems to be working as it should and i'm getting a good range of sounds although some tweaking of the trimmers is still required as mentioned by Sonus Fluxa on the main page.
For the ldr's is just used 6 random tayda ones (I may try to match some up when I get some more), and the leds are standard 3mm red coloured which i'll probably experiment with aswell
As for the regulator, my advice would be not to bother with it as it works perfectly well without. I used a socket for the regulator so I just jumpered from the input to output.
Once again Thanks for the help and advice and have a splendid weekend.
Bogey