I have an older Mackie 1642 VLZ Pro. I run the Control Room out to my amp and on to my speakers. The main out I run directly into my sound card for recording. Just recently the Control Room volume knob has started to act funny. When turned all the way down there is still plenty of sound bleeding through, and at certain low level volumes some of the signal drops out (sounds a bit like its being filtered). Once i get to about 9 o’clock on the dial it seems to sort itself out and sounds good.
One other clue is that the output meter is lighting up two ticks like it is registering a low level signal, but no audible signal or noise can be heard even at max volume.
Any thoughts on what might be happening and what to do to fix it?
You may have a clump of dust around the knob. I had a similar problem when I owned the Mackie 32x8 console. You can try buying a can of compressed air and spraying the pot. You may have to open the mixer shell. Also if you find that the inside of it’s pc board is very dusty make sure it’s fully unplgged from the power cord and you wear a pair of rubber gloves. You don’t want to touch it with your bare hands due to static electric. The gloves will protect it’s internal parts. You want to get a box of Q tips and a container of Isopropyl rubbing alcohol. Dip a clean Qtip into the container of alcohol so it’s moist not dripping wet and proceed to remove the dust from it’s internal pc board, knobs & sliders until it looks very clean. It’s a pain in the neck but for analog mixers it can do wonders even to synths. Good luck