VO-BB - 20 YEARS OLD!

imaginator · Posted: Fri Jan 30, 2009 10:00 am Post subject: house-keeping dust-up

couldn't find this in the "hints from heloise", so i'll ask here.

my trusty mackie board of many years is starting to suffer some break-ups in sound. and i'm almost 100% sure it's my own fault for letting dust get into the faders over time. when i work or jiggle the fader control, the sound returns to normal.

since i am not qualified to take the equipment apart for cleaning, would i be better off using some of that "canned air" to shoot down into the fader slot? or would a vacuum cleaner be better? or would the fluid from that stuff we used to spray into dirty tv tuners be able to get to the trouble area?

as a housekeeper, i make a terrific production guy.
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Hart · Posted: Fri Jan 30, 2009 11:02 am Post subject:

We used to use a contact cleaner similar to this stuff on our pan pots and faders but those were all older boards. I'd check with Mackie before I tried it I think.

I did find this in the Mackie FAQ:

Diane Maggipinto · Posted: Fri Jan 30, 2009 11:27 am Post subject:

thanks for the reminder and psa. good information!
i've got to clean my board, too. there's a lot of dry wall joint compound dust, pet hair, lack-of-cleaning build-up that need removal.
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Deirdre · Posted: Fri Jan 30, 2009 1:02 pm Post subject:

I use one of those little brushes that draftsmen use to brush away erasure microbes.

Similar to this:

Very soft "bristles".

Gets into all the little places dust likes to congregate.
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todd ellis · Posted: Fri Jan 30, 2009 2:53 pm Post subject:

Chrissy · Guest

How often does one need to dust, brush, or blow air?

Moe Egan · Posted: Fri Jan 30, 2009 10:36 pm Post subject:

There are just so many wrong ways to answer that question Chrissy...I'll shut up now.
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georgethetech · Posted: Fri Jan 30, 2009 11:17 pm Post subject:

Spraying cleaner like De-oxit in the pots of the Mackie may help, but it also washes out the grease inside them that makes the knobs feel smooth when you turn them, and gives them a bit of "feel". You know how a good knob feels when you turn it and it has a little bit of resistance to turning? After you spray them with cleaner, they turn much easier because that grease inside gets washed out.
Stick with canned air, and cover your mixer with a towel at night to keep the dust out. I also use the soft bristled brush dusting technique, amazing how much better it looks afterward.
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Charles Nove · Posted: Sat Jan 31, 2009 7:20 am Post subject:

One other thing to check: the Mute button on the affected channel. One of our Mackies started randomly losing the audio from one leg of the mic channel, and I assumed it was a dirty preset gain pot (it usually is!). It was only when I accidentally brushed against the side of the Mute button that I realised it was at the heart of the problem. I sprayed alcohol contact cleaner down it and operated the button about 100 times in quick succession. That cleared it.
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Lance Blair · M&M Joined: 03 Jun 2007 Posts: 2281 Location: Atlanta

Unfortunately putting cloth over my Yamaha MG16/4 turns it into a cat bed which just invites more cat stuff getting to my nearby preamps.
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Mike Sommer · Posted: Sat Jan 31, 2009 1:56 pm Post subject:

Everything sounds better with cat fur.

imaginator · Posted: Sat Jan 31, 2009 11:13 pm Post subject:

thanks one-and-all for the ideas, most of which i'll be putting to use to some degree (although i'm fresh out of fuchsia paint).
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