[yummypaint]

To be fair, you might have had an easier time if you were pulling apart scientific equipment. Audio quality is so subjective that the circuits quickly become relatively counterintuitive as designers experiment with all manner of hacks to decrease part count and change the sound.

[FatActor]

This walkthrough is a amazing and covers a lot of what you just said:

https://www.electrosmash.com/boss-ce-2-analysis

This is why programmers tend to faceplant when confronted with analog circuits, it is absolutely black magic that can't be brute-forced. :)