scratchy pot syndrome?!

[Wandering Kid]

yo. i noticed yesterday when i was cleaning my virus b desktop (i clean it alot : grin : ) that some of the pots are beginning to feel ever so slightly scratchy. ive noticed the buttons have a tendancy to become sticky but this the the first time ive noticed the pots themselves feel sort of different. now that ive experimented with this ive noticed - some of the pots feel different to others. some have more resistance and turning them is...not harder but you get what i mean? just more resistant. others glide around easier. some feel a little bit scratchy when they glide around.

how many other virus users find their pots have varying kind of feel?

my filter cutoff pot is quite sensitive i assume cuz i use it alot. the sustain time pots on the envelope are much more resistant again i assume owing to the fact i use them very little. my key follow pot is fairly sensitive but is also slightly scratchy. which worries me.

i initially thought constantly using the pot mechanism would wear it out but i clearly use the cutoff pot more than the key follow pot. i dont even need to think about it. how do scratchy pots come about?

also, a strange question - do any of you people smoke? do your virus have scratchy pot syndrome too? i ask because one of my friends used to smoke over his djm-500 mixer. he got scratchy channel faders eventually. possibly a result of dropping spliff ash into the fader mechansim. i do smoke but i never smoke over the virus itself and have never physically dropped ash on it.

i only mention this because of an observation i noticed on my friend's djm and the fact that almost everybody on ebay advertises their instrument as 'lightly used in a smoke free studio environment.'

and finally the dreaded question - how does one get rid of scratchy pot syndrome?