Never sprung for "gold". To answer your original question. If you buy "contact cleaner" it is basically some kind of organic solvent. That cleans oil and dirt and crud off but it evaporates completely and that's it. Deoxit as the name implies chemically acts on contacts to remove the metal oxide off of them. (all but gold contacts will oxidize over time. And some of the best ones (like silver plated ones) are the worst at building up oxide. And then as icing on the cake Doxit has a light oil of some kind that remains on the parts. This acts as a shield against air to reduce further oxidation over time. It also lubs the slider on the pots making it less likely to return to being scratchy. This is why we all love it.
HOWEVER, I have found that over a LONG time (20 years) gear that I poofed with deoxit has problems. The oil film left behind sort of itself oxidizes and begins to turn into plastic. The pots get sticky and hard to turn etc. Happily I discovered that all you really needed to do was re-poof the pots and the new Deoxit disolves all the old oxidized oil (or whatever it is). And they start working again.
You might think that a pure cleaner might be better than leaving something behind, but my experience is that pots sprayed with pure cleaner tend to get scratchy again much faster than the Deoxit poofed pots, so for real use Deoxit is better. But if you want to put something in storage until it's vintage, I'd go with pure solvent cleaners. An aerosol can with a long tiny tube is usually best so you can find a small hole to force the cleaner into a pot without having to take it apart. Some pots are quite open which makes it easy.
Annnnnndd....bassbenj gets bestowed the the illustrious title of "Mr. Wizard"! Thanks to everbody else for keeping this discussion going too though (you all get honorable mention
)
As for my situation:
I have a music room (non-climate controlled) in my below ground basement. It gets a little humid in the spring and summer. I don't keep my basses and guitars in there, but I do have amps, cabs, effects, mics, and a computer. I bought a little hygrometer (?) to measure humidity. It was about 5 bucks and I don't know how accurate it is. I primed the wall with a sealant to keep out moisture and bought some of those anti-moisture buckets from home depot.
A proper dehumidifier is not in the budget ATM, nor is time available to hunt down craig's listers selling used ones. I have noticed a scratchy pot here and there, and my aphex xciter pedal (which is on a pedal board, always on during play and never adjusted) just died on me. Granted the aphex pedal have notoriously shoddy construction, so deoxit might not have saved it, but I can't help but wonder...
Anyway, my gear is not stored necessarily. I play it several times a week and switch often between cab and head configurations on a variety of basses. I don't gig out these days so the gear is there 24/7. I do have a weekly church gig, but my church gear stays at the church.
So my stuff isn't in long term storage, but it also isn't going anywhere. The part of my basement that is not below grade is not prone to moisture issues at all, but the family dog spends her nights there and pet hair is a big issue. I don't mind it on boxes of books, but I don't want it on my gear, so amps stay in the humid room for the forseeable future.
I currently use standard contact cleaner, when this can runs out or I have a spare 20 in my pocket, I'll give the deoxit a try.
I hope that explanation helps. Thanks!
