Friday, February 24, 2017

Cleaning tips


At the end your instrument cables, ladies & gentlemen, are your plug tips. These are the very parts that come into contact with your instruments' input jacks (don't forget the ones at the amp & pedal ends as well). It's inevitable that we handle our cables by the tip sometimes. So that left some prints, stains & whatever not on the surface. These stains get transferred to the input jacks without us realizing it. 

The question is, do you clean those tips or carry on with the assumption that it doesn't matter? If moisture is transferred to your input jacks this way then it's really unfair that the jacks die of corrosion; it's an induced death. 

I'm not suffering from OCD but I do clean those tips with a dry cloth. Sometimes, When I know my hands were dirty before handling my cable, I would clean the tips with some string cleaner after play & re-insert them into the instrument (or amp/pedal), give it a little twist then unplug, wipe with dry cloth before putting them away. You'd say that these things have a good life anyway so when it comes to replacing them, it's inevitable. Yes, that's a case in point but let's not brush aside the possibility that a problem might manifest at crucial times, during a live performance for instance. There's no compulsion to clean them of course, but let's not be sorry for ourselves for not taking preventive measures. 😅

Wishing you a good weekend ahead (the final weekend for the month). 

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