OT Makie 1604 pot crackle blues / chop in a resistor ?

[petey twofinger]

so i have this 1604vlz , since 94 . it has severe rot cracles on the gains , i have recently disassembled it , cleaned it up , refitted the ribbon cables . this brought it around a lot . i used very small ammounts of rubbing alcohol in the pots , and twisted em .

know iwe are using 8 channels and it is pretty stable , but still a few tiems a night the signal drops down like 3-6 db's , very noticable ammount , until someone has to jiggle the knob .

i am curios , could i just solder in a resistor on the bad gain pots , i realize they would be at a fixed setting . but we have our own volume controls on the devices that feed the mixer .

would i have to remove the pot ?

will this work at all or is it a terrible idea . i cant afoard a board right now  , its really a drag . paid 1500 for the board , and i dont want to get a behringer or some crap with no inserts etc ...

thanks

[Mike Burgundy]

If it has seen a fair share of use, the almost 20yrs of life is quite a feat for a mixer, and it's very likely to be in need of a good service. Cleaning is part of that, and if contact cleaner (or enhancer! It exists! Search the forum for this) doesn't help, replace the pots. Remember, the gain knob and fader see 90% of total pot use on the board.
You could replace a pot with two resistors mimicking the pot in a certain setting, or even one if the pot is wired as a rheostat.