Pocket Operator saving presets while changing batteries... ?

Pocket Operators
#1

hello! i searched this site and found some conflicting information, but maybe also because of the different editions of po’s…


so if i make a bunch of user beats and save them on the 16 buttons, and i change the batteries, will i lose all my work? someone seemed to think the first gen trilogy would erase the patterns, and the second gen trilogy would hold them?

i’d experiment and test this out myself, but i already have some shit i want to save and would hate to lose it just to see what’s up. anyone have any concrete info?

thanks for your help!!!
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#2

If you simply just change the batteries, your stuff should still be there.


CB
#3

If I recall correctly, the pattern saving is done when the PO is off, meaning you would have to wait for the automatic switching off for your patterns to be saved and your batteries to be safely replaced.


You might want to record your PO output first, though ^^
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#4

^ That is correct! Note that on the new PO-2X series you may force a shutdown by pressing Sound+Write.

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#5

I’m curious about factory resets on the older models. As far as I had heard, it was a feature exclusive to the newer series, but it’s listed in the online manuals on the PO-10 series as well. Has anyone tried a reset on their 12, 14, or 16? Does it restore the original patterns?

#6

The feature does work on new po-1x’s. They actually are running a newer firmware.
iirc the manuals have little footnotes or something indicating features only present on the new firmware.

#7

This is interesting…
Are there different firmwares for the PO-10 series? The manual would lead me to believe that, otherwise I don’t see why they wouldn’t explicitly say that this doesn’t work with PO-12/14/16 at all.

If there are first-gen models with updated firmware, I’d be curious to know if mine have it.

#8

^ I think you just need to press Sound+Write and see if it will shutdown… mine does not.

#9

I got my new PO-12 a few weeks ago and it does not have a manual shutoff feature. I assume it would be running the newer firmware.


It does turn off pretty quick by itself, though, so I really don’t miss the manual shutoff, even if it is handy on my PO-20.

Good to hear that patterns save when you change the batteries…though really, would they have left that out? : P
#10

Has anyone experienced their patterns being replaced for the factory defaults after a couple of days without batteries?

#11

There is no circuit in the PO that could cause that behavior (no RAM memory backup). The patterns are saved to flash memory when it goes to sleep (after 5 minutes of inactivity?) or the save feature is invoked on the newer units.

If this is really happening, the only explanation that I can think of is that upon saving the patterns, it also saves a checksum, and after a few days without the batteries the flash memory gets corrupted, causing the PO to restore the default patterns.

#12

So if it happened once, it means there’s something wrong and it will happen every time?

The only other possible way for this to happen, as far as I know, is that I accidentaly invoked the factory reset when placing the batteries again, which I didn’t do