Gear + Booze

P

Pony!

New member
I don't know where to put this so I'm placing it in two places out of fear and desperation.

I have a mackie onyx 1640 w/ firewire card that I use for both my live sound rig and my home recording. Tonight we were hosting an open mic where people went out of their way not to get up on stage. To keep things going my band rocked the house.

Of course (same ol' story) the five minutes I decide to leave the hot bar and get some air a half a beer hurtles down upon my mixer. My guitarist comes and gets me. When I get to the mixer it is still passing a clear signal but all the meters are half full. I immediately cut power. Beer trickling down the front of my DBX driverack, lexicon and both of my power conditioners.

I dry everything off as best I could and we called it a night. I have no energy to take things apart at 3 in the morning. What should I do with beer? With water you can just let it dry for a couple days but beer is whole different animal. What should I do? What can I do? (short of taking it to a service center and spend plenty money I don't have).
 
This may sound strange, but my tech used to wash everything with clean filtered water to get the beer (sugar) out, then let it dry or dry with a hair dryer. Then you have to clean it all again with contact cleaner. All this has to be done with care!!! I would take the whole lot to a tech to be cleaned.

Back in the 80's I did have a jug of beer tip over a mixer at a gig, and I did drop the back off and wash it out with a jug of water, dry it off, and 30 mins later the show carried on. However this was an 70's built mixer that was built like a tank, Jands Australia, don't know about modern construction?

Cheers

Alan.
 
Beer is good...but not for mixers :-(

Contact Cleaner might be a better choice than water of any sort. Just get a can from an electronics store and baptize it. Be careful if you get the kind that has lubricant (for cleaning Pots) it can get really messy. I would get just plain ol' contact cleaner. The bottle I have is by "Blow Off."Good Luck.
 
Smogger said:
Contact Cleaner might be a better choice than water of any sort. Just get a can from an electronics store and baptize it. Be careful if you get the kind that has lubricant (for cleaning Pots) it can get really messy. I would get just plain ol' contact cleaner. The bottle I have is by "Blow Off."Good Luck.
Click to expand...
another tech I knew used to use water. It really is ok as long as you don't turn it on until it's absolutely dry BUT, I'm with Smogger ....... I'd use some contact cleaner and you don't want the lubricant. Get some DeOxit DR-5.
You should be ok except if the meters are mechanical (needles) then they may be in trouble because they have little bearing surfaces that could get gummed up and it's be hard to clean those but if they're LED meters then no prob.
Good luck.
 
Man I'm sorry to hear about your gear. Wouldn't water create rust on or in between the connections? I don't know, I always take my stuff to get serviced. Good luck.
 
the main thing is that water's not gonna be as good for cleaning that sticky residue.
You can get DeOxit at Radio Shack although it's cheaper to order it and the Radio Shack cans are smallish. But time is an issue here and you can just walk in and get the stuff immediately.
DeOxit is flat out the very best cleaner.
 
Thanks everyone for your voices. I worked my butt off yesterday with the contact cleaner on all of your reccomendations. Cleaned everything with some contact cleaner and a toothbrush. I powered on the mixer today. It powered on without any problem. I tested every channel. Everything tested out ok except channel 7. It crackles when I move the fader... but only when I move the fader above unity gain.
 
Pony! said:
Thanks everyone for your voices. I worked my butt off yesterday with the contact cleaner on all of your reccomendations. Cleaned everything with some contact cleaner and a toothbrush. I powered on the mixer today. It powered on without any problem. I tested every channel. Everything tested out ok except channel 7. It crackles when I move the fader... but only when I move the fader above unity gain.
Click to expand...
then you're golden.
Take the DeOxit and spray inside that fader and work it a bunch, especially around the area where it's crackling and that should do it.
 
Thanks Lt. Bob! I owe you my first born or something. Everything's working wonderfully. The only thing I haven't tested is the firewire output. But beer didn't make it to that end of the mixer. I checked. So, it should be fine!

Thanks to everyone!
 
So, did the person who spilled the beer help you clean the gear? ...Or help pay for all of that contact cleaner?

I hope at least an apology.

I am a soundman. I have a policy..."no beer gets near the gear."
 
Nah, the guy who did it is a friend of ours... In fact he's one of our guitarist's housemates.... but he's a bit of a deadbeat. He owes my guitarist 2+ months in backed rent. But, since it only cost me about 20 bucks in cleaner and about 9 hours of my time I should bug him for a few bucks.
 
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