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I'm trying to settle a bet with a friend of mine, and I appeal to you all for help.

He says my views about keeping a piece of gear (in this case, a console) in a smoke-free environment is silly. The amount of damage that would happen is minimal, he claims, and is not worth even thinking about. He allows that ashes in the electronics/"moving parts" would be no good, so we've limited our discussion to smoke, whether smoked ambiently in the room, or blown directly at the piece of gear in question.

Can anybody enlighten me? Any literature returned by Google revolves around the much more serious health risks of smoking.

You want to keep moisture and dirt from collecting on all the contacts in your studio. There are thousands of contacts in a console (every pushbutton switch, fader, pot, connector, and so on). In most cases the switches and pots are not sealed and are vulnerable.
When you exhale smoke your sending out a moist cloud of ultra fine dirt that will get on just about everything in its path. Once in a while wont be a big deal, but most of the time, 14 hours a day, every day for years can make your switches noisy, pots scratchy, patch point normals intermittent. If all the switches and pots get dirty, you are in a world of shit as far as repair is concerned. They are going to get that way naturally, but better that happen after 15-20 years as opposed to 5 years.
It is a trade off. comfort vs. reliability. There are some people who can't take a break every time they need to smoke. To do so would slow down the process too much. One Japanese guy who recorded here smoked 3 packs of cigarettes a day! There is no way he could have done any work if he had to leave every time he smoked.
There are ways to limit the problem. We routed the HVAC intakes for studio A in the rear of the control room (by the couches) so the air gets sucked up right away. I'm of the don't smoke in the control room so much camp however.

You can go out of your way to keep your equipment clean and smoke free, and then one day someone comes along and spills coffee with cream & sugar into the faders, which is what happened at my place. Then you can say "no smoking and no food or drinks in the control room", but who wants to work in a place like that?

The studio is one place where I get the nicotine jones. Still, among smokers, the rate of cigarette consumption can usually be negotiated. Maybe a "down time only'" rule would suffice: no smoke in the tracking or control rooms.

On the other hand, some people cannot perform without their smokes. In this case, the proprietor and the talent have to come to terms beforehand. I live in Minnesota, where outdoor smoking is not always an option. To me, an outright smoking ban would be a serious disincentive.

When I was a kid, I did a record in a small studio in Halifax, and watched as the owner first smoked through the profits of his session, second blew smoke directly into the board and at the tape machine, and third, smoked himself right out of his marriage and consequently his business.

It gave me the willies. I carry them with me to this day.

mcatheter wrote:
It gave me the willies. I carry them with me to this day.

Maybe you should take up smoking, then. It's found to provide the user with a sense of euphoria upon consumption, which might help with these willies.

The goo in cigarette smoke is extremely sticky and letting it in any room with tape or tape heads in it is ill-advised. I say this being a Marlboro smoker, not as an anti-smoking zealot.

My high-school science teacher, in an effort to scare me out of smoking, made me do an experiment in front of everyone in my class. He took one of my butts, pinched out the tobacco, and burned it up in a test tube. He then gave me the rest of the period to use whatever chemicals were in the lab to try and dissolve the tar residue. After pouring in a hellbroth's worth of caustic and dangerous chemicals (hydrochloric acid, pure lye, et cet.) it was still there.

Granted, it didn't dissuade me from smoking, but it sure as shit convinced me not to smoke near any recording equipment or open-reel tapes.

I have limited experience in this, being a non-smoker. However, I remember recording at a studio where the engineer blew smoke directly onto the board constantly. Not surprisingly, one of the guitar tracks had to be rerecorded after the channel shorted out.

I'm always nervous when Steve starts smoking, but things go so well there that I guess there's a right way to get around the potential damage.

If you stop smoking you can use the money you save to buy lots of new gear!!!