Tascam DP02 - annoying hum - please help!!

[funkeegirl]

Hi there! Really hope someone can help...

I recently moved to the States and someone has very kindly lent me a Tascam DP-02 digital recorder. I had a play with it last week and noticed that when I plug my acoustic guitar in there is an earthing/grounding type hum and when I touch the metal case of the DP-02 it goes away. This doesn't happen when I plug my bass guitar into the unit...just my Takamine acoustic. I've tried different jack leads and the hum is still there. I brought my little Korg Pandora 4 track digital recorder and I doubled checked to see if the hum was there and it wasn't.

I've no idea about this type of thing so any thoughts and advice would be very much appreciated

Thanks for reading this far!

 

[ecc83]

Sounds to me that the Tascam unit is not grounding via the power supply (or you might have electricity supply problems in your new home!) .

Do you have a desktop PC or mac? If so connect the usb lead. This should tie the unit to earth. If you don't have an earthed computer run a jack to an amp.

We generally have problems with earth LOOPS, i.e. too many! But you usually need at least one for high impedance kit like guitars.

But! DO make sure your wall socket earths go to earth!

Dave.