PreSonus ATOM Production and Performance Pad Controller with Studio One Artist Software

5.0 out of 5 stars

By Cole - Reviewed in the United States on November 14, 2018

Shut up and take my money 💰

I own all the PreSonus gear (faderport 8, studio 192, fp88, Central station plus, etc.), am a constant Amazon buyer, and this is the first item that has ever compelled me to write a review. It is simply amazing. Out of the box, was recognized by Studio One. All the pads line up seamlessly to my virtual instruments. Extremely responsive / intuitive interface. Nice modes to cycle banks. Great colors. I also own an MPC Studio Black, it cost more than this, is double the size, less responsive, and does half as much. It also requires constant manual remapping. Atom just turned it into a paperweight. Can't recommend this enough whether you have no equipment or a full studio. The software it comes with alone is worth the price tag.

5.0 out of 5 stars

By Kammeron - Reviewed in the United States on November 15, 2018

Impressed.

I am using this in conjunction with Studio One 4 Professional (currently my favorite DAW, comes with a license for S1 Artist) and I must say that I am impressed especially considering this is PreSonus' first pad controller. While there are some issues to be ironed out, it works pretty well and knowing PreSonus, functionality will be improved in the future. I haven't tried it with Ableton just yet but all of the pads and buttons are able to be MIDI mapped according to PreSonus. I just haven't got around to looking into it. Other than that, the four rotary encoders feel nice and the pads are decent as well.

5.0 out of 5 stars

By Rob Unger - Reviewed in the United States on April 27, 2019

Awesome! (Updated)

Received this today and was jamming in minutes! I read reviews that said that the sensitivity was bad - I have had no problems with that... I plugged it in, updated the firmware, opened Studio One and was jamming right away. I was pleasantly surprized with how sensitive it was...and you can adjust the sensitivity anyway. When used with Studio One, it has tons of loops, kits, effects, etc... I am very happy with this purchase so far. (Update: After playing with this for a little while, I have noticed that this unit does have some triggering issues. It occassionally double-triggers and misses triggers. Not bad for the price, I guess... but a little annoying when you have to edit drum tracks by hand. Will update again after more use.)

2.0 out of 5 stars

By Amazon Customer - Reviewed in the United States on June 5, 2019

You get what you pay for

A bit confused by all the positive reviews. This product has made me realize that getting a good midi controller at this price is just not feasible. Built nicely, looks cool, knobs are nice, but the most important thing when it comes to these items is the responsiveness of the pads if you ask me, and after messing with this thing for over an hour I was just...unsatisfied. Even attempting to play simple drum beats pads will often not respond to hits without excessive force, sounds aren't made frequently, I was so excited to receive this and was just demoralized by how even the simplest of beats were a chore to play. Not fun to use, and trying to make actual music on this things sounds like it would be such a hassle it isn't even worth it. I used it on ableton and it's not compatible with Asio4all either. I never write reviews, but the reviews for this product had me expecting an item I did not receive, and I cannot recommend this unless you just want a bunch of buttons and knobs to midi map, because playing drums on it is just no good, unless you want to do excessive editing afterwards. I've decided to return mine and put the money spent on this towards one that is of higher quality, because I just don't see any practical use for this that justifies the money spent. Real shame.

2.0 out of 5 stars

By Kristopher Madaus - Reviewed in the United States on January 29, 2019

Buggy, Inconsistent, and Frustrating

This sounded like a cool device for the money. I've used a bunch of controllers over the years with a bunch of digital audio workstations, so this kind of thing isn't new to me. I bought it for the portability and integration with Studio One 4. Although there are some great things about this device, it turned out to be just frustrating. It simply doesn't do what it is supposed to do about half the time. I started off using the device to select an instrument from the browser, and I ran into two problems. 1. The knob above the browser button wasn't working to navigate around the browser window as it should. 2. The Select button wasn't working to add the instrument to the track. This was just the beginning. I won't go into the rest, but you get the point. It is buggy. As I continued to work with the device, I found that these functions would work sometimes, but not others under seemingly the exact same conditions. I even walked step by step through a PreSonus tutorial video to make sure I wasn't skipping an essential step or missing a core concept. But no. It simply didn't work as described in the manual. Overall, the device has decent build quality, and the pads feel ok for the price. The device is small, and that comes with pros and cons. IT's great for portability and efficient use of desktop space, but it also makes the buttons harder to see and read compared to other similar (and more expensive) devices like the Ableton Push 2 or Maschine. The entire buttons light up, so the brightness made it hard for me to read the buttons. This probably wouldn't be a problem once I got used to the device. The position of the buttons is a little odd. Some functions I use a lot, such as Undo, was buried under a secondary function. I had to press Shift+Stop to undo, and those buttons are on opposite ends of the controller. There is also no button to bring up the mixer, which seems like a huge oversight. Even to switch between drum banks involves multiple button presses, when this device was designed to integrate with PreSonus' Impact instrument which has multiple drum banks. So overall, it was a frustrating experience. PreSonus may update the firmware someday to fix these features, or maybe I got a bad device, but with these limitations, it wasn't worth $150 + tax.

1.0 out of 5 stars

By Daniel from Texas - Reviewed in the United States on April 5, 2019

PURCHASE NOT AS DESCRIBED

I did not receive the USB connection cord with my Product. Very dissatisfied. This is unacceptable. I was told I would have to send my purchase back in order to receive the Cord. That is not an option after registration of this Product! Unacceptable! I will rate this purchase as 1 Star until I receive a New USB Plug. I AM A PRIME CUSTOMER. I PAY ALOT OF MONEY TO INSURE MY PURCHASES ARE DELIVERED AS ADVERTISED.