As your equipment begins to age, it’s gonna need exercise, just like you will. What does it mean when we say “exercise our gear”? As they age and are exposed to the environment, components collect dust.
They oxidize. They wear. You’ve heard it, that crackle when you turn up your amp and intermittent button.
A pan pot that cuts out. We’re all subject to entropy. You and your equipment.
So avoid smoking or vaping, also around any electronics you care about. But no matter what you do, this potentiometer eventually is gonna need to be changed. Blowing compressed air into it may help a bit, but if you’ve got scratchy pots dusted across a 48 channel console, cleaning or changing out every one of them is gonna be time consuming and expensive.
On older equipment, it’s common practice to exercise connections repeatedly across their range of motion. You do it gently, you do it quickly, and you do it a lot. And I mean a whole lot.
I’ve worked on plenty of consoles where I have to spend at least a couple minutes on every channel where I expect to work. Pushing some button, knob, or fader. Just to make sure it didn’t crackle when I touched it or when I didn’t touch it.
Or to ensure that it’s passing signal at all. And it’s true for everything. Even you.
Exercise your gear, exercise your joints, move it or lose it, gang. And you can share that with someone who belongs in a Beat Kitchen class.
