behind the bench

we’ve all read stories about some guitar god coming into some [store/talent show/recording session] and ripping it up on some [cardboard piece of junk guitar/kazoo/wildly different piece of gear than they normally use] and just laying everyone flat, and the amazing thing is he sounded just like he does with his regular gear!

shock and awe! oh noes! my money that i have saved up for to purchase elder scrolls of riffdom and +3 magic battle axes of squank and owning the note are all for naught!

well. interestingly enough i never hear any continuation of these urban legends/stock beerside truism: “he sounded great” “his tone was even better than on the record”. hey picasso used black and blue oils just like in my paint by numbers set that i got when i was 3. i still cannot paint guernica.

sometimes that last mile is under the sofa, or that little thing that you might think is inconsequential.

take connector cleanliness. think about every single mechanical or electrical interface that your sound travels through. when was the last time it got cleaned? i’m talking you, wiper arm inside potentiometers, and contacts inside pickup selector switches, and you, effects loop relays. and what about those input jacks. pop some contact cleaner on the end of a swab and swirl it around those jacks. sometimes what you find can be.. well.. barftastic. your sound was trying to pass through that.

what about the ends of your cables? pull them outta that dusty, beer soaked bag, and take a close look at their condition. especially where the ‘finger’ of the connector touches, as well as the base of the connector where your nut and jackplate touch. i’ve seen rings of black gunk on those that would turn any tone monster into a feeble wheezing mosquito fart if you tried to put sound through it.

this wonderful pandoras box gets even better when you dive into things like amps and pedals and racks. reverb tanks. yeah, they have press fit connectors on them. who was president when those things were put on? maybe time for a clean and a helpful twist of the connector just to re-seat some fresh metal. check the connectors and the wire condition, too. tubes. your signal passes through the little pins in the ceramic sockets. i’ve seen some amazing crust in there. pedals and rack gear have true bypass, or relays that have small contacts that conduct 100% of your sound through them. ever been in a pig sweaty room filled with people smoking and drinkin and hootin n hollering.. generally ripping things up? well some of that moisture and schmutz made it into your electronics, even supposedly ’sealed’ contacts still have an amazing capacity to leak moisture into their supposedly impenetrable fiefdoms of fun.

oh and for some really sleepless nights. what kind of wire does all that stuff have in it?

pleasant dreams!