Rob Chapman "joins" Atomic Amps ..... "major new" release coming very soon

Thanks to this I can’t

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Gawd I love Blanche so much:

 
Steve Coogan Shrug GIF
 
"Prepare to be asked about what you want, what you like, what you don't like..."

Also - prepare yourself for getting ghosted.

"10 or 11 years ago...that was EIGHT.YEARS. ago!"

Better call Rob...well, try the other Rob....


I honestly hope they succeed but because of things like this it going to be a long road

That said my personal dealings with Tom king was great I emailed for CLR but was told they had sold out
Then I got an email from Tom saying he found a few in the back of warehouse,
Because we had just moved and I guess address was not showing in comp , Tom actually called me personally to verify the shipping details , Cost me $60 shipping for a 30 pds box , he provided tracking and shipped same day

So I can’t complain although I know many have not been so lucky
 
I honestly hope they succeed but because of things like this it going to be a long road

That said my personal dealings with Tom king was great I emailed for CLR but was told they had sold out
Then I got an email from Tom saying he found a few in the back of warehouse,
Because we had just moved and I guess address was not showing in comp , Tom actually called me personally to verify the shipping details , Cost me $60 shipping for a 30 pds box , he provided tracking and shipped same day

So I can’t complain although I know many have not been so lucky
As Rob’s video notes, it’s been 8 years. That video is part of what got me looking into what exactly an Amplifire was. I searched then and found…a fairly high rate of CS complaints vs. positive experiences. If you search today, 8 years later, you will find…8 more years of the exact same pattern. And lots of wildly delayed 0promised firmware updates.

I’d love to see them
Succeed. I’d love to see gas under a dollar a gallon, world peace, a more egeletsrian distribution of wealth and all sorts of other things.

Eight years of not really getting your shit together just isn’t really the promising sign post one would want.
 
I honestly hope they succeed but because of things like this it going to be a long road

That said my personal dealings with Tom king was great I emailed for CLR but was told they had sold out
Then I got an email from Tom saying he found a few in the back of warehouse,
Because we had just moved and I guess address was not showing in comp , Tom actually called me personally to verify the shipping details , Cost me $60 shipping for a 30 pds box , he provided tracking and shipped same day

So I can’t complain although I know many have not been so lucky

Their support has always been wildly inconsistent, and that's not going to change until someone at the top starts caring about it. There are threads going back 10+ years like, "I sent my thing back to Atomic to repair. I've been emailing for a year now and no one has responded." And then in the replies there's always a guy who says, "Tom King picked up on the first ring, gave me a free CLR and then detailed my car." And there are a bunch of threads where the mere act of posting the thread gets a response, because they do seem to read forums (sometimes).

Either after ~20 years in business they still haven't figured out that they need a ticketing system, or they have one and whoever manages it is doing a terrible job.
 
Their support has always been wildly inconsistent, and that's not going to change until someone at the top starts caring about it. There are threads going back 10+ years like, "I sent my thing back to Atomic to repair. I've been emailing for a year now and no one has responded." And then in the replies there's always a guy who says, "Tom King picked up on the first ring, gave me a free CLR and then detailed my car." And there are a bunch of threads where the mere act of posting the thread gets a response, because they do seem to read forums (sometimes).

Either after ~20 years in business they still haven't figured out that they need a ticketing system, or they have one and whoever manages it is doing a terrible job.
I imagine some of the issue is that they kind of take the Fractal approach of ordering batches of product from Chinese manufacturer . . . but unlike Fractal, they don't ever seem to have parts on hand to make repairs. Maybe they still haven't learned to keep a few pieces on hand for parts or warranty replacement rather than selling everything that comes in?

I don't know if you still can or not, but used to be able to find Tom King on Facebook, and the return shipping address was literally his home address...and Zillow showed it to be a nicer house than Atomic Amps revenue could secure purchase of. All of this to say, it's always seemed like a side-hustle to whatever his main career (or possibly his partner is the main bread winner, who knows). If so, that would explain why sometimes he's super on and sometimes he's totally tuned out.

At this point, I'm not about to roll the dice on anything "Atomic" with a price tag north of $200 until I've seen a full product launch and 18 months of support that looks like "WWFD?".
 
I personally really like Tom King and have had great interaction with him, buuuuuuut.....I can't deny that they've made some rather public mistakes in terms of customer service and responsiveness.

That being said, I wish nothing but the best for him and whatever this thing is. Atomic had a window where they had the opportunity to cement themselves as a major player offering a perfect nexus of affordability, quality and simplicity to a market that had major players who rarely touched all three pillars. But I think that window is closed, and there are a ton of competitors in their tier now.

I always thought a better play was to license the amp sims to a bigger player that could really leverage them, but I think that IP just belongs to Studio Devil, not Atomic Amps.
 
I personally really like Tom King and have had great interaction with him, buuuuuuut.....I can't deny that they've made some rather public mistakes in terms of customer service and responsiveness.

That being said, I wish nothing but the best for him and whatever this thing is. Atomic had a window where they had the opportunity to cement themselves as a major player offering a perfect nexus of affordability, quality and simplicity to a market that had major players who rarely touched all three pillars. But I think that window is closed, and there are a ton of competitors in their tier now.

I always thought a better play was to license the amp sims to a bigger player that could really leverage them, but I think that IP just belongs to Studio Devil, not Atomic Amps.
I have used the first Gen Amplifire and it sounded good. I use the Studio Devil bass amp plugin almost exclusively for when I record bass at home. It's a great plug.
 
I have used the first Gen Amplifire and it sounded good. I use the Studio Devil bass amp plugin almost exclusively for when I record bass at home. It's a great plug.

For Marshall and Fender sounds, tone has never been an issue with Amplifire. I had the AA3 a couple of times, and sound quality was the least of my problems.
 
I imagine some of the issue is that they kind of take the Fractal approach of ordering batches of product from Chinese manufacturer . . . but unlike Fractal, they don't ever seem to have parts on hand to make repairs. Maybe they still haven't learned to keep a few pieces on hand for parts or warranty replacement rather than selling everything that comes in?

I don't know if you still can or not, but used to be able to find Tom King on Facebook, and the return shipping address was literally his home address...and Zillow showed it to be a nicer house than Atomic Amps revenue could secure purchase of. All of this to say, it's always seemed like a side-hustle to whatever his main career (or possibly his partner is the main bread winner, who knows). If so, that would explain why sometimes he's super on and sometimes he's totally tuned out.

At this point, I'm not about to roll the dice on anything "Atomic" with a price tag north of $200 until I've seen a full product launch and 18 months of support that looks like "WWFD?".
All your points are 100% valid and there will have to be a large shift in customer service to repair the reputation of the brand

It is possible though as even DI can attest prior to Helix Line6 had a pretty bad reputation, it took them years but now the are considered on top of the game , that said they also had a huge focus on customer service with Frank going above and beyond and Igloo getting on the forums and asking what people want and answering questions .

I think it’s going to depend , obviously they have watched the market for the last 7 years so they should know what people want
But hopefully the new team will be just a focused on the Customet service and support

Originally Atomic was just Tom and Marc Gallo the designer I believe
Not sure where Marc is but I believe he taught engineering so Atomic was likely just a side gig hence the no updates
I doubt Marc is part of the new Atomic team but who knows
 
All your points are 100% valid and there will have to be a large shift in customer service to repair the reputation of the brand

It is possible though as even DI can attest prior to Helix Line6 had a pretty bad reputation, it took them years but now the are considered on top of the game , that said they also had a huge focus on customer service with Frank going above and beyond and Igloo getting on the forums and asking what people want and answering questions .

I think it’s going to depend , obviously they have watched the market for the last 7 years so they should know what people want
But hopefully the new team will be just a focused on the Customet service and support

Originally Atomic was just Tom and Marc Gallo the designer I believe
Not sure where Marc is but I believe he taught engineering so Atomic was likely just a side gig hence the no updates
I doubt Marc is part of the new Atomic team but who knows
Line 6 had a bad rap for charging for any extra content beyond what was included at launch and for coming out with a “this one really IS real!” Every three years, not “dude, where is the $1000 speaker I shipped to you 12 months ago?”
 
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