Recording problems - major buzzing

Went to do some recording last night at a home studio (singer songwriter type who does his own CDs as well as other projects). The owner is a devotee of all digital/computer recording (drums are the exception) and had never actually miced an amp (uses a rack Pod of some kind). I had heard his stuff with his band (and did not like the guitar sound) and told him I wanted to at least try a real amp and move some air, so I brought over a mid-70s Princeton Reverb and a new AC15 (the cheap one). We cut a couple of tracks with the Princeton and they sounded OK, but there was a noticable hum that the ground switch could not correct. Switched to the AC15 and the hum was huge - could not get rid of it, tried other outlets, extension cords, and nothing worked. So I gave up in the interest of time and did the Pod thing since I was trying to get my tracks down for the singer to work from. I was not a happy camper but I wanted to be productive so I let it go. I need to go back in a few weeks and finish up - my question is what can I do to make it work this time? I am thinking the home builder forgot to ground the outlets (new house)! Any suggestions? (Using an old 62 reissue strat and no effects. And the amps do not hum at home when I use them.)

on a side note, I don't think the house would pass final inspection (or any of the electrical inspections) if the outlets (and entire grid) aren't grounded properly. However, inspection doesn't mean that you get noise/hum free recordings, either.

That being said, what kind of pickups are in the guitar you were playing? Don't single coils have symptoms like that?

[edit] Did the amps make the same level of hum with NO guitar plugged into them? You can buy a little yellow outlet tester at a hardware store for under $10 that you can plug into the outlets and see if they are properly grounded, etc.

Elmer- thanks for posting. I was only half joking about the builder being responsbile for the hum - but then again if you saw some of the crap houses that are going up in our area...

Less hum without guitar, but still very high level. Single coil pickups (strat) but again no hum back at my house with exactly the same set up. I may try the tester - but then again I am paying for this guys services and he should be able to provide an environment where stuff works without me having to to run a tester!

i'd suspect the house wiring ... a lot of those "new" houses were slapped together with a lot of corner-cutting. those little outlet testers Elmer mentioned are worth having to carry around in your kit -- when noise happens at a gig, you can at least figure out whether it's your gear or the venue's wiring.

Elmer- thanks for posting. I was only half joking about the builder being responsbile for the hum - but then again if you saw some of the crap houses that are going up in our area...

Less hum without guitar, but still very high level. Single coil pickups (strat) but again no hum back at my house with exactly the same set up. I may try the tester - but then again I am paying for this guys services and he should be able to provide an environment where stuff works without me having to to run a tester!

we checked out a handful of electrician's work before we did an addition on our house. I know what you mean. Quite a variety of definitions of 'quality'.

and I think a 'clean' sound at home should be a 'clean' sound at the studio...hopefully y'all can get it worked out or at least figure out what the problem is.