Hey all, I thought I would share a small experience I had with my PO-12 since I see a lot of people posting about battery issues here and there.
TLDR: rechargeable batteries are 1.2v and not recommended for a PO and cause performance issues. Use 1.5v non-rechargeable if you are experiencing screen or button related issues. Yes the manual says this - but I see a lot of people on the forums say otherwise.
In late December I got a PO-20 and later a PO-12. I put fresh batteries from a box in the PO-20. Short on fresh batteries I recharged a pair of energizers I had from a remote control I wasn’t using into the PO-12 once they were fully charged. I assumed they were roughly equivalent.
A week ago when I was trying to sync some drum breaks on the PO-12 to my Korg Volca and I noticed the pocket operator was being stupid about the “play” button, often missing presses when I was trying to hit the 16th beat on the Volca to sync them up. Often I’d really have to jab the shit out of the button - not something you’d really want to deal with in a performance. After toying with the 12 a bit more I realized it wasn’t nearly as responsive as my 20 and freaked out a bit.
Then I remembered that I had put rechargables in, even though I knew they were 1.5v. I bought a new pack of 1.5v normies in and bam - buttons on the 12 are as sensitive as your nipples in sub-zero temperatures.