I have a few of the PO’s and am very keen to learn how to use them - I have a general understanding of the PO-12 and PO-20, and recently bought the PO-35 but am struggling to get my head round it. Basically, I really want be confident that I can back it up properly on my computer before I get underway with recording, and I’m having trouble doing so.
I’m very new to this and don’t have a particularly hi tech set up - just a laptop with Audacity (which I’m new to) and a stereo line in to the headphone jack. I’ve done a bit of research online and made sure the recording is 16 bit/44khz, the output on the PO-35 is a decent volume level (11), and I’m getting the static-y track sent to Audacity successfully.
My problem is sending it back to the PO-35. I play it from Audacity back through the line (my socket is both line in and speaker out, so I re-insert the jack and select speakers from the drop down options) and press set the PO-35 to receive. I then get a kind of chimey sound on the PO-35 with a ‘RCV’ sign on the display… but then once the signal has been sent (I hear the static-y data signal again) nothing has changed.
Should there be something notifying me that it has been successful? Am I missing a step? I confess, Im unsure if there is a difference between a line out signal and the speaker/headphone options that I get when I plug the cable back into the jack.
As I say, this is new to me so would really appreciate any advice and apologies if I’m missing something super basic here
I haven’t done this in a while, but I’m pretty sure there is some indication in the display when it is properly receiving the data, like a counter.
Note that you must record in stereo. You said “my socket is both line in and speaker out”… do you mean like a TRRS connector that has mic+speaker? If yes, that will not work since the mic input is mono. Also make sure you don’t apply any compression to the recording, like MP3.
Also, not sure if you are aware of that, but you don’t need to backup the original sounds since you can always factory reset it to restore them.
Indeed, getting back to the original sounds is stated in the official guide: “factory reset
hold pattern + write while inserting batteries to restore the unit to factory default.”
Aha, yes - I have a Dell/Windows 10 laptop with a shared line in/headphone jack, so if that input is mono then it sounds like that will be an issue.
I think I really have 2 problems here:
1: Going straight from the PO-35 to my laptop (for whatever reason) will result in a mono signal, so it sounds like I need some kind of audio interface. I’m unfamiliar with this side of things as you can probably tell, but I would like to make a sensible/affordable purchase and am not sure where to start.
I have a couple of new keyboards (some of which function as midi controllers) that I am also learning to use, and eventually I would like to record some music that features synced pocket operators and then additional keyboard tracks. I’d also ideally like to be able to record from a microphone without having to worry about latency.
Do you have any advice on purchasing an affordable audio interface? (This is more of a home recording query, sorry)
2: Regarding backing up - My concern isn’t really about losing the factory default - it’s about being able to program the PO-35 with a number a voice samples and patterns and then back them up somewhere.
I’d really like to be able to store a number of different back up sessions (with different sounds/patterns meant for different purposes) and reload them to the PO-35 whenever I wanted to work on them. I guess ideally I would like to be able to this on a portable device like my phone so I can work on things when not at my computer, and back them up easily to google drive or something like that.
I have an android Moto G4 phone and was wondering if there way to record onto that via a line in, or whether that will have the same issue of the TRRS connector?
The Android phone will not work either, unless you use an external audio interface. Maybe your best option is to buy a portable recorder, like a Zoom Hn. Try to search the forum, I recall some people discussing which model is the best.