Tascam DR05 Help

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freightliner009

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Hi all,

A newbie to the forum and have a bit of a dilemma that I'm sure someone can put me right on :o)

I have a Tascam DR05 but want to try and use a SoundTronics ST2 condenser mic for acoustic guitar recording. Now all gear is relatively new and all working, until I bought a female XLR to stereo mini jack and a phantom power supply for the mic. Set it all up and it doesn't work. I can use a normal mic with the DR05 and it's ok, so the Tascam input is ok. I have tried the mic in a Tascam 8 track using the built in phantom power and that works fine too. It's just using the condenser/phantom power box/female XLR to mini jack doesn't want to work on the DR05, any thoughts anyone?

Although a mono mic, I would expect the stereo mini jack to split the signal to left and right channels albeit not a 'true stereo' signal, right? If I pull the mini jack out of the input by about 5mm it will work but obviously unusable like that, but I know the input is ok as a standard Sure mic works ok like this, I'm confused, please help?

Many thanks,

Andy.
 
The XLR to stereo mini jack is likely sending a "balanced" signal to the DR-05's left and right channel. The DR-05's stereo input sums this balanced input which are equally (+) and (-) and the result is zero, they cancel each other out, thus no audio. When you pull the plug part way out it evidently catches the TRS ring and tip to allow the input to work on one channel.

I use a cable that takes the balanced signal and wires it to be unbalanced. The XLR pins 1(Gnd) & 3(low signal side) are tied together to ground and go to the sleeve on the TRS and the pin 2(high signal side) is connected to the tip and ring of the TRS. The mono signal goes to the left and right equally.
I believe I got the cable from Amazon > https://www.amazon.com/Hosa-XVM-110F-XLR3F-Right-Angle-Microphone/dp/B004NCUIUS

Microphone Cable - Hosa Technology
 

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Wow, that explains things, thank you for that, this will definitely work for my set up?
 
One other thing I will say that I forgot to mention, the lead I bought works in the Tascam digital 8 track but not the DR05, does this change anything that you explained?
 
freightliner009 said:
One other thing I will say that I forgot to mention, the lead I bought works in the Tascam digital 8 track but not the DR05, does this change anything that you explained?
Click to expand...

Unless I misunderstood something (highly probable :) ).....

You are connecting the.....

ST2 > XLR -------- XLR > phantom power box > XLR -------- mini stereo plug > DR05

ST2 > XLR -------- XLR > Tascam 8 track (phantom power "ON")

I don't know of a Tascam 8 track that would accept a mini stereo plug as an input and the only jack on it that would provide phantom would be an XLR.

What Tascam 8 track do you have?

I can use a normal mic with the DR05
Click to expand...
What is the "normal" mic?
 
I looked at the specs for the DR05 mic input. I'm presuming the normal mic is an electret type mic with a TRS mini plug that uses plug-in power. Plug-in power is a low bias voltage, but not the same as phantom.

"MIC/EXT IN
Connector 3.5mm (1/8") stereo mini jack, Unbalanced, Plug-in power"
 
That's correct, the 8 track is a DP02 which has its own built in phantom power that works fine and yes the phantom power of the 8 track is only on the XLR inputs. I thought all I'd have to do to use the ST2 on the DR05 was to get a n XLR to mini jack and a separate phantom power unit which I did and it didn't work at all. It seems to be ok on one channel with a mono mini jack but not at all with a stereo jack, I was rather hoping the stereo jack would just split the signal into left and right even though it was a mono signal, but not a sound was hitting the level meters at all.
 
Andy... Just to make sure the phantom power box is working, connect the ST2 up to it and the output of the phantom box connect to an XLR input of the DP02 (phantom on the DP02 'OFF'). Power up the phantom power box and the mic should work.
 
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