TL;DR rant alert:

Someone mentioned mic capsules/membranes.
Folks have been singing (ie breathing violently) directly into and around mics since their invention...
I mean, have you seen some of the shite that can come out of the human respiratory tract?

And...
everybody wants 'vintage' gear of all sorts...


vintage = from the time when
the whole world smoked baccy and studio buildings were heated by oil, coal and coal-gas boilers powered by local generators/power stations pouring smoke into the air mixed with cars running on leaded petrol and two stoke-self-mix oil/petrol and diesel... and, oh yes, steam driven rail locomotives burning coal going past all day...
Mmmm, lovely, so nice, let your lungs and speakers get a coating of all that filth.

("Hmmm, let's open a window and get some fresh air in this control room.")

Then, after hours, the cleaner comes in with their permanantly lipped cigarette getting up close and personal with all of the gear as they desultorily swish around a greasy dusting rag that was last seen flacking coffee dregs from a table in the kitchen area... e v e r y day.
= vintage.
I mean, really, you've got to laugh. Don't sweat this guys...
And Oh yes, and sweat flying off from the more exuberant performers adding to the mixture coating the tweeters.

Yummy.
My work here is done.
Have fun.

 

Last edited: Oct 24, 2025 at 6:02 PM

i have to admit i from time to time smeel the weed smoke but theres no smokers there or weed. what a mystery

 

its Prince William with the butler

 

My two cents worth

I was taught that any substance that can technically layer a surface with pollutants if cleaned often will have very little affect except in the very long-term(over 10yrs). If you are chain-smoking weed or tobacco in the same environment as your studio, yes, that may throw the prior logic out the window. If not, and you clean regularly, ensuring resin and other things do not layer your gear...it should last. Everything needs cleaning and maintenance because you also have dust which is also an enemy of electronics unattended too.

 

I believe it was the marihuana that made Cypress Hill go insane in their membranes, a lesson we all could heed, imagine what they could have achieved if they stayed off the drugs.

 

In the library?

 

Well, I can advice you not to crank up the speakers but turn down the source volume and then plugging things in and out. Not that being massively high is the direct cause but it does make it easier to do. Why do you ask? No reason.

 

yeah and the residents of Silent Hill became dead, went missing, or were absorbed into the Otherworld… all because they smoked a marijuana
not the right place to smoke weed

 

No, there is no proper place to smoke the Marihuana, it's been proven by bands that it makes your music sound terrible, just say no, kids

 

What you see as a library, a prince sees as a pantry closet

 

Maybe after decades, but not in a couple of years. It will definitely hurt resale prices on your gear though. Nobody wants to buy instruments and gear from someone who has been smoking inside. It's almost impossible to completely get rid of the stench and it's a pain in the ass (and disgusting) to clean the thin layer of tar that has built up all over the instrument or piece of gear. In my experience, people who smoke inside are generally not people who value cleanliness either, so whenever I get a piece of gear or instrument that smells of smoke I just know that it has never been cleaned. Not saying that you are like that, but that's just my general impression of people who smoke inside.

Microphones, on the other hand, can be damaged by smoke much quicker (especially ribbons and condensers). Cannabis smoke is even worse than tobacco smoke because of how much tar it contains. Never smoke around studio microphones. Smoking on the stage in front of a cheap SM58 is one thing, but doing it in a studio with a $3k condenser or ribbon is a big no-no.

 

Not Mustard in the study with the pipe?

 

this is why i only use edibles.

 

drinks of any kind are more potentially harmful. THC is a good way of screwing up mixes.

 

Smoking weed in studio retunes speakers to 432 Hz.after 3.14 years approximately.

 

No silly, cos speakers aint got no brain cells!

 

This is true. Once i started putting spring reverbs with huge decays and space echoes with huge feedback on a country music record because of the weed. The artist wanted to sound like Luke Combs and ended up sounding like Grateful Dead. Damn, weed, that was low.

 

With a blunderbuss!

​

 

Mixing while drunk: "That guitar needs to be LOUD, make it LOUDER!" "Oh, now that bass isn't LOUD enough, make it LOUDER!" "Needs more LOUD kick!" *pushes all faders up*

Mixing while stoned: "That hihat is too loud... it needs to be softer." *turns volume down on all*

Mixing on acid: "I want the sound of the statue of Incan Sun God here, between solos #4 and #5." *sweeps EQ on a mute channel*

 

If you have very fine tweeters there's a possibility they could be affected but I can't say it's something I've ever noticed.

Apart from the obvious build up of tar and discolouration that will occur, microphone diaphragms as mentioned previously are very sensitive and definitely need to be looked after. Things I guarantee will be damaged by smoke are faders, pots, switches and sockets, the combination of tar and dust is lethal and will greatly shorten their lifespan.

Not to mention all the ash that finds its way into the mechanisms...

I used to be a heavy smoker and back in the days when smoking was still allowed in venues I used to smoke and mix all the time. That behaviour continued after the ban for years when I was doing outdoor work. I can't tell you how many times the ash has fallen from the end of a smoke and landed on the mixer; yeah, you blow it away but some of that inevitably finds its way into the faders/pots/sockets. These days I know better and wouldn't dream of doing it (even if I still smoked), I have more respect for the gear and find maintenance as unfulfilling as ironing clothes (a pointless activity which I've never done once in my life btw).