Dirty Volume Control

[Hank T. Tone]

Seeking advice: a couple of years ago I had the Martin factory in Nazareth, PA, install a pickup in my OM-28VL. The pickup sounds great over the PA system in the church where I play in the Sunday choir, except for one thing: the volume control makes noise when I dial it back and forth, much to the annoyance of the priest celebrating Mass. In the radio business, we used to call this a "dirty pot." Anyone have any suggestions for how to get rid of the noise? Does it need grease or what? Thank you ahead of time for your feedback.

[brad4d8]

In a regular pot, a quick spray of Deoxit or another contact cleaner, but not sure how to access it in your pickup. Won't solve your problem, but a workaround until you do, Taylor (and probably others) sell guitar cables with a volume control.

[EZYPIKINS]

Originally Posted by brad4d8

In a regular pot, a quick spray of Deoxit or another contact cleaner, but not sure how to access it in your pickup. Won't solve your problem, but a workaround until you do, Taylor (and probably others) sell guitar cables with a volume control.

Or If your church has a sound engineer you could work with them to mute and unmute at the proper time.

[Wade Hampton]

To me it sounds as though some dirt or grit has gotten into the potentiometer. I’m not especially knowledgeable about electronics, but I think that that can be cleaned.

If this problem is an annoyance to your priest, one thing that you can do immediately is to run your guitar through a junction box. These are simple floor pedals. You can instantly turn off the line that your guitar is on by stepping on a button on the junction box.

That way you don’t even have to fiddle with the volume control at all.

Hope that makes sense.


Wade Hampton Miller

[KalamazooGuy]

Deoxit as mentioned before will solve the issue.

[dnf777]

Deoxit. If that doesnt clean it, it may need replaced. Not sure how deoxit behaves on finishes, though, and it tends to splash a lot. Can the pot be removed easily for cleaning?

[stringjunky]

Rapidly move the knob one way then the other in a side to side motion with volume down. That will probably smooth things out.

[MarkF_48]

DeOxit makes a formulation specifically for faders and pots. Not sure what the difference exactly is (lubricant I think), but it's what I've been using and it's worked mostly well. It doesn't take much of a squirt, although it usually dispenses more than needed. Have not any problem with overspray that got on plastics, but not sure if it could damage or mar a guitar finish if it got on it.

https://www.amazon.com/Hosa-F5S-H6-D.../dp/B00006LVF1

[jseth]

Originally Posted by stringjunky

Rapidly move the knob one way then the other in a side to side motion with volume down. That will probably smooth things out.

Before you squirt any Do-Oxit into that guitar, try this... as rapidly as you can without tearing the little thing off it's housing, move it back and forth, all the way from one stop to the other... do it a BUNCH of times.

Should do the trick, unless it's actually got some gunk stuck in there, or it's a faulty pot...

[varmonter]

Rapidly moving it will work sometimes.
Any kind of muting box on the floor
By your feet will silence the guitar
Until your ready to play. Many pedal
Tuners do this. I use an Orchid muting Di box.

[jonfields45]

https://www.stewmac.com/electronics/...xoCU5EQAvD_BwE

This is the product that in theory cleans POTs without the harsh acids of a contact cleaner. You don't want to be spraying this stuff inside your guitar without carefully surrounding the target with cloth to absorb overspray.

In general, POT cleaning is a temporary fix. It can't fix pitted surfaces in the POT, the lube will quickly out gas or wear to being ineffective, and often the lube becomes a magnet for collecting new dirt.

If you can afford it and it is important to you, I would replace the volume/tone module. In some generations of Fishman Matrix it is not hardwired.