“I have an old mixer with really dirty sliders. I’ve tried deoxidizing cleaner on some of them, but now they feel much worse, yet seem to work okay. What’s wrong?”
The first thing is to try some compressed air to remove all of the dirt from the faders (see WFTD above Fader). If you don’t clean the fader out before you use the deoxidizing cleaner, the dirt particles will simply stay inside the fader and never leave (no matter how much rent you charge). Unfortunately, deoxidizing cleaner may remove some of the lubricant along with the dirt, making the fader sound better, but feeling very stiff or gritty. Do not use any type of alcohol or other harsh solvent on a fader as it will remove all the conductive material inside and make it completely useless! Of course, the best thing is to replace the fader, which, depending on availability of older parts, may require some time to complete, so contact the service department at Sweetwater to schedule a convenient time to do this. If parts are not available for your unit, and cleaning the faders doesn’t do the job, this may be a good time to check out some of the newest mixers — they sound terrific!
