PRESONUS Atom £115

The pad controller appears to be as popular as ever when it comes to hi-tech music production. Novation's Launchpad range has recently been updated, while models from Akai, Pioneer and Korg provide varying levels of control over a huge range of hardware and software devices, while Ableton's Push and Native Instruments' Maschine excel with their very specific and highly-detailed hardware integration.

Presonus has also been in the controller game for a while now, and has produced plenty of hardware with DAW and other MIDI control: everything from its FaderPort 8 (which we reviewed a couple of years back) right up to its huge Studio Live digital mixers have some level of MIDI control in there, so it's fair to say the company has great form here.

SIZE OF AN ATOM

Atom is a compact pad controller that is not only designed to control the obvious—beat production and