Today we are talking input jacks. The part you plug into. The female end. If you’ve got gear, you’ve got inputs, and chances are, you’ve had problems with them. Be it 5 pin or quarter inch, the in and out wear and tear on your input jack causes it to get loose and your sound suffers.

What can you do? How do you safeguard your input jacks? What are your worst input stories?

You never know exactly when the input is going to falter. Usually, at your biggest show, or when you’re in the studio. There’s a crinkle, or a loss of signal, or buzzing. You troubleshoot every other piece of gear before you realize, maybe it’s the input jack.

The fine Pro Audio folks at Guitar Center spoke and said guitars are the most often seen items with input problems. It’s that big old quarter inch jack you plug into and out of over and over again.

The poor, innocent input pays the price for the deliverance of your rock action.

Depending on how you use your gear, obviously, has a lot to do with it. But when you have just finished a set, and you’re rushing to get your stuff off stage, sometimes you pull your chords out quickly. As much as you try to baby your equipment, inevitably there’s some thrashing that happens.

There is corrosion as well, that can be an issue. Gear gets old, and inputs don’t like the elements. Inputs also don’t like beer, or sweat, or blood. Even in the cleanest, vacuum of a studio, inputs cause trouble.

The fix: tighten down the input sleeve screw, or completely replace the input. Some guitars have a recessed jack that is harder to work with. On other gear, sometimes you’re dealing with a circuit board, and that’s always fun.

To avoid input problems on the guitar, you could go wireless. Then you have to deal with interference issues. Unless you’re Slash though, who wants to go wireless?