Olympus LS-100 Multi-Track PCM Recorder

Comments about Olympus LS-100 Multi-Track PCM Recorder:

So far I really like this recorder. I have the smaller ls-10, which is all metal, so at first I was disappointed that the body of the ls-100 is plastic, but it has performed well and seems sturdy enough. Only complaint I have so far is that from reading the manual it seems that I have to change menu settings whenever I change my input source. I wish the unit would just recognize that a mic was plugged in to the xlr, or to the mini. But, that brings me to it's second limitation, which is I don't believe it can record to one channel with the mini and one channel with the xlr. I had planned to feed my shotgun into the xlr, and my lav into the mini, but it will only record whichever input I select (one or the other, but not both). So you can control the levels on each channel independently, but from what I can tell, that's only applicable with the dual xlr inputs. And mini isn't the same as 1/4", so you can't just plug the lav into the other xlr (without an adapter, but I couldn't find a mini cable with threads to hold onto the 1/4" adapter so it falls off). Other than that, great clean audio.

Comments about Olympus LS-100 Multi-Track PCM Recorder:

My first recorder, to be used for nature recording.

Just wanted to correct an issue raised by another reviewer. The unit does PAUSE playback, if playing back a track and STOP is pressed, the track pauses, press PLAY again and the playback resumes. I have no idea why the reviewer has a problem. It also pauses during recording, press the REC button and then again to start recording, then if you want to pause recording press the REC button again. Press STOP to finalise the track. Admittedly Olympus could be consistant with the operaion here, i.e. to pause playback the operator should maybe have to push PLAY again (so the the PLAY button is a PLAY/PAUSE button, in the same way that the REC is REC/REC PAUSE, or even have a separate PAUSE button!

I have little to compare against in terms of sound quality but as a beginner I am very happy with the dynamic range and ease of use, it does everything and more for my needs.

Comments about Olympus LS-100 Multi-Track PCM Recorder:

Mixes all tracks to 2 output tracks to edit. What's the point of separate tracks in (more than 2) if you can't edit them individually!

Comments about Olympus LS-100 Multi-Track PCM Recorder:

I have used the LS-100 to record a concert band, replacing a unit with separate XLR microphones, cables, and a lot of setup time. The sound stage is great, and the frequency response is outstanding. It can take our loudest sounds without overload (over 100 musicians in a middle school auditorium). With that comes a drawback, however: ambient room noise (HVAC) transmitted through the stand to the unit becomes a low-frequency rumble that cannot be eliminated with anything Olympus offers, nor with software, without canceling out the tubas as well(!). That rumble is as annoying as old-fashioned tape hiss, and it interferes with the sound of the lower register instruments. I have ordered a Neumann Z 26 mt shock mount to try to deal with this problem and will report on the results later.

Comments about Olympus LS-100 Multi-Track PCM Recorder:

I am a musician and was looking for a little multitrack recorder to preserve ideas on. I was all set to buy a competitor's handheld unit when I saw this was coming out in a few days. After watching a video on the unit (hype?), I did something I never do, I actually ordered a brand new product the day it was released. Initially this unit is very impressive but over the course of a couple months I've realized some serious limitations that one would not expect on a recorder costing this much. I'll skip the specs and get right to it.

There are 2 main modes in this unit, "Recorder" and "Multitrack". They are self defining with "Recorder" being single track. One issue I've run across is that some options are only available in one mode and not the other. There is also some impressive looking "lissajous" mode for checking the phase relationship between your mics. This mode strikes me as slightly ridiculous, but I don't usually do field recording and adjust my mics by ear when in the studio. Since I use mainly the built in mics on this and don't use it in the studio it is basically irrelevant to me. I wish they would have put some of that effort spent on this into other areas as you will see below. Here are the main highs & lows:

PROS-
1. Very easy to use, intuitive, menus nicely organized.
2. Incredible battery life and power options.
3. Decent internal mics & sound quality in general

CONS-
1. No way to pause playback, ever, in either mode.
2. No index functions ala A/B loop, memory point playback in multitrack mode.
2. No way to add to/alter single tracks in multitrack mode
3. Drops playback of tracks after fastforwarding

The PROS are pretty obvious. This thing is easy to use. I barely read the manual to get going. I wish I had, I would have hopefully noticed some of the shortcomings. Easy to use with amazing battery life...like 12hrs(!) That is my single favorite thing about it. It's more like a smart phone than a recorder. It shuts itself off after a programmed amount of time, it's great. I can't imagine having to put AA's in this thing....it would drive me crazy. Half the time I never even turn it off because it doesn't matter...never have to worry about powering down. When it's low just plug it in or plug into a USB port and it recharges quickly. The designers get an A+ on this aspect of the recorder. I didn't particularly buy this for "high quality" sound so I'm not going to get into it too much...suffice to say records in formats from MP3's all the way up to 96ghz/24bit and it sounds pretty darn good. I'm using this for demos am am settling on 44ghz/16bit as a default. There are a couple of compressors built in (1 and 2), the description of these is pretty vague but I gather one has a fast attack and the other slow.

I'll address the CONS point by point because some are pretty serious:

1. No way to pause playback. You need to think about this...imagine an analog reel to reel tape recorder, now imagine that every time you press "stop" when the machine is playing or recording, the transport instantly rewinds to the beginning of the tape...that's what happens with the LS-100! So, let's say you are trying to come up with a part for the 2nd chorus of a song...say 1:50 seconds into a song (like I was), when you are done and want to hear it, you only option is to press STOP (it instantly stops and resets to zero) then press PLAY, then hold down the Fast Forward key to advance to 1:45 seconds...and that's just to hear it once. If you don't like what you hear, you press "STOP". "RECORD" to arm the track, "PLAY", "FF" to advance to the 2nd chorus, "RECORD" to begin recording again, and then "STOP" and repeat the 1st process to hear it, every time having to press "PLAY" and then holding down the FF key for 10 seconds or so to advance to 1:45 on your song. It becomes very tedious to say the least. I should also point out that you can't pause record either. This glaring omission (I have never seen any audio recorder, be it cassette, digital, reel to reel without a "PAUSE" button) is only exacerbated by CON #2 because...

2. There are no indexing functions available in Multitrack mode(?!) Hello, multitrack mode is where you need the indexing! The designers of this thing were smart enough to put Indexing and A/B loops functions into this thing but then don't let you use them in Multitrack mode? Makes no sense. Indexing would have possibly been a passable work around in the situation I described above under #1. As it is you are just SOL.

3. Can't alter tracks once they've been recorded. The best way to describe this deficiency is by example. Let's say you have a guitar part on track 3 that only appears in the chorus of a song. As you are developing the song, you come up with a nice little guitar part you'd like to play during the intro. Since there's nothing on track 3 until the chorus you decide to put it at the beginning of track 3. If you try it, here's what will happen: as soon as you arm track 3 to record during the intro (bear in mind, you haven't actually started recording yet), it completely erases everything that has been recorded on track 3 (turns it into a blank track). That's the bottom line with this complaint...you can't alter, add to, or partially erase tracks in any way once they've been recorded. You either accept them or erase them entirely.

4. This last one is strange. I recorded 7 tracks at 96/24. After 2 minutes of playback I rewind 20 seconds to hear the end again, but now, only 2 tracks play instead of all 7. If I stop and restart they're all there. I don't know if this has to do with the 96/24 setting or not. It's a pain. Another reason to have a pause button. This has happened both with the internal memory and an SD card.

All in all it's a very mixed bag with this unit. The "Recorder" mode oddly enough has index functions and an overdub (sound on sound) option. I don't really understand this part of the design. Ok, I can layer sounds on one track but what happens when I make a mistake? I have to start over completely. The whole point of multitracking is that you record one track at a time so you can redo it if you make a mistake.

I do like the size and battery/power options. I take it with me in my car and listen to ideas from the night before. It's handy and I never have to worry about battery life. As it turns out I'm using the Recorder mode for rough ideas and then use the multitrack mode to arrange them. It's working but it can be tedious as I described.

I will also point out that I was so incredulous on the "pause" issue that I actually called Olympus and spent 30 minutes on the phone with them after which they verified with me that there is no way to pause the unit. I also asked them to checked into a remote that they offered which says it offers "record/pause/play" capability but they tested that too and it would not pause either.

So ultimately what do I think? I consider it a somewhat powerful unit, clearly not designed by or for musicians, that should probably cost about 25%-35% less than it does. It's still a useful tool but with some serious limitations.

Comments about Olympus LS-100 Multi-Track PCM Recorder:

I use this recorder for music recording on the fly when I need something quick and easy. I was surprised that the internal mics were fairly balanced in response and low noise in general. Coupled with the ease of using most external mics using the XLR standard and phantom power, if needed, it is a very useful addition to a musicians equipment bag. That being said I was fairly disappointed that the live headphone monitor audio is slightly delayed from the audio source. This makes the multi tracking capability of this unit almost useless. I am not sure if this is fixable by a firmware update or not. Have contacted Olympus but did not get a response back about this. Not very incouraging. This issue is mentioned in several other reviews on the internet. It would be a little decieving to call this a true multi tracker and the issue is not mentioned at all by Olympus as far as I am aware.

While you cannot use this recorder while the internal battery is recharging, the battery life is decent and getting extra batteries with a wallwort recharger is a no brainer and costs very little. The internal mics being in a fixed position are not as flexible as other handhelds with multi poistion mic heads however I am getting really decent rcordings with the mics just as they are.

The software is easy use and understand. The online manual is much more detailed than what you get from the booklet that comes with the unit.

All in all I am satisfied with the unit becuase of its good qaulities I have pointed out above. However if you are looking for a handheld multi tracker as is suggested in the promotional material this unit falls short of its intended purpose based on the audio delay issue.

Comments about Olympus LS-100 Multi-Track PCM Recorder:

The Olympus LS-100 is the audio recorder I have been waiting for. A hand-held recorder with this many features and very high level of performance at the price is a great achievement. As I am blind, the voice guidance feature allows me to use most of its facilities without having to remember key sequences.

Comments about Olympus LS-100 Multi-Track PCM Recorder:

Using the recorder to document oral histories. Quality is exceptional. Easy to use. Works flawlessly EXCEPT in one instance: Auto-level is independent on ech channel such that, for example, if a sudden percussive noise overloads one channel, stereo soundstage is thrown way off and takes a couple seconds to recover. As useful as auto-level could be, in an environment where extraneous noise is likely to occur, it is useless. Understand that this is a minor quibble of an otherwise exceptional recorder. The LS-100 puts its competition to shame.

Comments about Olympus LS-100 Multi-Track PCM Recorder:

I got this recorder two weeks ago, and I've used it for recording live events and interviews. The built-in mics capture phenomenal sound, and the XLR inputs offer lots of additional options. I have used it with the Sennheiser ME66, and I was able to capture clean sound in a bustling and noisy environment.

The menu interface is intuitive and comprehensive.

Four of the things that I think this recorder got absolutely right are the use of the lithium ion battery (as opposed to disposable); the internal storage; the ability to provide phantom power; and the ability to use the recorder as a USB mic. I'm sure that as I continue to use the recorder, the list will continue.

The one thing that I hope Olympus adds is the ability to record simultaneously off of the built-in mics and the XLR inputs. The Zoom H4n is able to do this which is important, especially for videographers. The addition of this ability would put the Olympus LS-100 Recorder heads and shoulders above all other hand-held recorders.

Comments about Olympus LS-100 Multi-Track PCM Recorder:

wedding videos, real estate voice overs, interviews and music videos.
Best sound of 5 mics I use
2 XLR connections with phantom power is a bonus, bonus, bonus
A little bulky, but its got those XLR connectors, yet light. A TCG would've made it close to perfect

Comments about Olympus LS-100 Multi-Track PCM Recorder:

I use this for capturing sounds to be used in my music projects, as well as for recording my lectures and DJ sets. Though many professionals might want to supplement this with their own external mics, the built-in mics sound amazing. Low noise, and they capture very loud sounds. I brought it to a concert, stood right in front of the speakers and it captured the sound with no distortion. I have recorded two live DJ sets using the line-in, and they sound great. I recorded the sound of a flowing stream and with headphones on it sounds like you are there! You can choose from many different recording formats, Mp3/wav and a variety of bit depths and resolutions. It also can render your wavs to mp3 but, somewhat annoyingly, ONLY if the wav is in 16bit mode. The modern color interface is nice, though sometimes it feels a bit unnecessary. One time it froze on me and I had to take the battery out. I am very happy with this purchase and I bring this thing everywhere with me.

Comments about Olympus LS-100 Multi-Track PCM Recorder:

I was hesitant to purchase a new [$] item with no reviews, but I'm glad I did. Construction is solid. I have tested both the on-board mics and recording through XLR with the RHODE NTG-3, both sound spectacular. Menus are intuitive and button layout is ergonomic. Overall, a great recorder.My only worry is that your only option for mobile power is the dedicated Li-ion battery. I'm used to carrying around a bag of AA's that I can quickly swap out if necessary. Knowing that I'll have to stop recording and wait while the battery charges scares me a little. Now, it does boast 12.5 hours of battery life, but I bet you that doesn't weigh in the use of phantom power.Anyway, I am %100 satisfied with my purchase and I would recommend it to all in the film-making and music industries.