Contact Cleaner

[zisme]

this may be a totally unnecessary statement to make here, but apparently i myself have needed a good reminder of it recently:

NEVER UNDERESTIMATE THE POWER OF CONTACT CLEANER!

i've known forever that it's important to keep the stuff around, but a few instances in the last couple of weeks have really hammered its importance home for me.

first was fixing my p90 tele selector switch. the neck pickup position would intermittently cut off. i pulled open the guitar and resoldered the pickup and switch connections thinking i had a cold solder joint or a loose connection. NOPE - just a dirty switch fixed by contact cleaner

for a while my ehx nano big muff had been cutting in and out while activated. again, opened it up to examine the wiring and couldn't find anything wrong. just a dirty switch fixed by contact cleaner

the big one though is that i've had an unwanted noise in my band rig for a while that took me forever to diagnose. to me it sounded like a hissing/clipping sound that sat on top of my clean playing that was especially noticeable with heavier picking action. my amp and guitar are new, so i got it in my head that it had something to do with my signal path between the guitar and amp. i tried different cables. i pulled apart my pedalboard, checking each effect, testing the patch cables. i was concerned about power since my rv500 is a ma hog. i would have done this eventually anyway, so i don't feel too bad about spending the $ - but i replaced my board's power 2 plus with a gig rig power setup, including a dedicated power supply for the rv500 (time lord).

now at this point it's important to note that i should have pumped the brakes when the problem first arose and done some more thorough troubleshooting - like trying a different guitar, or plugging straight in to the amp. my band tries to be pretty efficient at our practices, because we all have busy lives and families, and it's tough enough to maintain a once a week session as it is. so i hate "wasting" time working out technical glitches when we could just be getting on with playing. but after i brought the newly wired pedalboard to practice and the problem STILL persisted I about lost it. i've been exclusively playing my jazzmaster with this setup - primarily in the middle pickup position. this time i plugged straight in to the amp and the noise was still there. now i'm thinking it's the amp, but how can that be? it's brand new, barely any mileage, and i've been extremely gentle with it (more than any other piece of gear i own).

plugged in my backup guitar - no noise. it's the jazzmaster. i die a little on the inside. of course it's the guitar. maybe i was too prideful to admit it since i put it together (warmoth build). my mind went to the pickups - maybe i messed up the wiring somewhere, maybe i damaged them during assembly, maybe it's just the nature of the beast with jm pickups - they're noisey by nature, sensitive to interference. while all of this is rolling through my head i flip to the neck position and play...

no noise. i flip to the bridge pickup and play...no noise. i flip back to the middle position...there's the noise. WTF? i jiggle the switch tip in the middle position a bit and hear a static-y crackle.

Only+hadestier+rage+gifs+can+express+such+rage+_dd462b1a31c86035e665d94e7b934d18.gif

you gotta be f'in kidding me right? i play through practice in the neck position, take the guitar home, spray the switch with contact cleaner, flip it through the different positions several times, and let it dry. i take the guitar back to the practice space the next day during my lunch break and try for a solid half hour to reproduce the noise. it's gone.

a guitar tech once told me he called contact cleaner "guitar tech in can". i sort of rolled my eyes at him at the time, but i've come to accept this as truth.

thus endeth the lesson

[zisme]

just because it's slightly humorous in hindsight

this is a clip of the first song i played after rewring the pedalboard. you can hear the noise in the verses where i'm playing clean. at the end of the video you can briefly see me hitting the notes again while glaring at the amp. it was at this point i made the proper diagnosis

[jhull54]

I can't tell you how many amps I've "fixed" that simply needed a healthy wash of the pots and switches with contact cleaner.

Great story!

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[PoodlesAgain]

Friend wanted to trash a vintage Polytone.
Some cleaner a wipe, and it is now in the hands of a friend with equally vintage Ibanez George Benson model, who LOVES it!

EDIT: Poor grammar, but I think both player AND guitar enjoy the amp!

[eicca]

What contact cleaner do you recommend? Deoxit D5 is on my list, any others I should consider?

[zisme]

What contact cleaner do you recommend? Deoxit D5 is on my list, any others I should consider?

this has been my savior of late

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000B ... UTF8&psc=1

[jhull54]

this has been my savior of late

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000B ... UTF8&psc=1

This is exactly what I use.

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[RockYoWorld]

Contact cleaner has not only helped me clean guitar circuits, but it's also been a life saver cleaning power connectors that I've used from batteries to off-highway electric vehicles. Definitely recommend having a can on your workbench.