Recently released in the Olympus LS Series (recorders typically aimed at music and nature sound recording) is the Olympus LS-P4 … what’s so different about this little LS recorder I hear you say, well its the first Olympus recorder to record in FLAC. Olympus clearly going after the YouTube generation of videographers with this model, makes sense as they are also pumping out some amazing cameras themselves with the Olympus OM-D range. You will see in some of the Olympus videos below how this unit is being flagged with “4K video meets hi res sound”.
FLAC if you don’t know, has been around for years, its a lossless format meaning to the average person its really really high quality, no bits of audio are trimmed off to save file size. So what does this mean for those of you who record music, nature and now including you videographers, well really awesome and very high quality sound recording. The Olympus LS-P4 can also record in Linear PCM or MP3 audio formats.
The Olympus LS-P4 is small and lightweight, comes with a hot shoe mount so easy to pop on top of your 4K DSLR or using the screw thread onto a tripod if you plan to point the recorder at yourself singing, your band playing or your favourite bird chirping (apologies to the twitchers if chirping is not the correct way to describe birdsong).
The LS recorders from Olympus have been around for a few years, the LS-P4 is the first to pickup the FLAC recording format and will undoubtably open this little unit up to some creative use cases. I have included a selection of Olympus promo videos for the LS-P4 below, please do pop on your headphones and have a listen most are recorded using the LS-P4 as the audio input.
The unit comes with 8Gb of memory built in plus a microSD slot for expanded memory up to 32Gb if needed. Powered by 1x AAA rechargeable battery supplied with the unit (or you can pop in a normal AAA alkaline), off one fully charged battery you will get between 16 and 36 hours of recording time depending on which audio format you select. The unit can also be powered by USB.
With bluetooth connectivity if you are recording music you can easily connect to your favourite bluetooth speaker and play back your creative work for all to hear.
Some key tech specs for you:
- Sampling frequencies for Linear PCM & FLAC
96.0 kHz/24 bits : 96.0 kHz
88.2 kHz/24 bits : 88.2 kHz
48.0 kHz/24 bits : 48.0 kHz
48.0 kHz/16 bits : 48.0 kHz
44.1 kHz/24 bits : 44.1 kHz
44.1 kHz/16 bits : 44.1 kHz
44.1 kHz mono : 44.1 kHz
- Sampling frequencies for MP3
320 kbps : 44.1 kHz
128 kbps : 44.1 kHz
64 kbps mono : 44.1 kHz
- Microphone Jack – 3.5 mm diameter; Impedance: 2 kΩ
- Headphone Jack – 3.5 mm diameter; Impedance: 8 Ωminimum
- Weight 75g including battery
- USB plug-and-play – MacOS and Windows compatible
- Full Olympus LS-P4 spec on the Olympus Australia website
Available in Australia for $269 incl. GST with free delivery from Dictate Australia