Editorial Policy

Our publishing principles#

Viyolens covers musical instruments, studio gear and music technology. We write for players and producers in the UK — people deciding what to buy, what to learn, or what to do with the equipment they already own.

We choose what to cover by the questions people are asking: a subject being searched for, a piece of gear that keeps coming up in player and producer discussion, or a topic where what is already online is thin, dated or contradictory. Advertiser interest is not a reason to cover something, and it plays no part in how we pick a topic.

Every piece is held to the same standard:

• It is built from published material — manufacturer specifications and manuals, measurements published by others, and what players and producers report in practice.
• It separates what is known from what is not. Where specifications disagree, or a claim cannot be checked, we say so rather than tidy it away.
• It is research, not a hands-on review. We do not take delivery of review units and we do not test or measure gear ourselves, so we never write as though we had.
• It carries a byline, so you can see who is responsible for it and what else carries their name.
• It is researched and drafted with substantial help from AI tools, and a person reads it and decides it is fit to publish before it goes live.

What we publish is general guidance, not a recommendation made for your room, your budget or your setup. Specifications, firmware, availability and prices change, and a detail that was correct when we published it may not be correct when you read it. Check the current details with the manufacturer or the retailer before you buy, and use your own judgement.

Editorial independence#

Viyolens is funded by affiliate links and display advertising. That income pays for the Site; it does not buy anything else. No brand, retailer, advertiser or affiliate partner can pay to be covered, to appear in a list, to be placed higher in one, to be written about in a particular way, or to have a link added or taken out.

Commercial partners do not see our copy before it is published. They are not sent drafts, they do not approve headlines or wording, and they have no right of reply to an article before it goes live. If a brand thinks we have got something wrong, it can write to us like any other reader, at contact@viyolens.com, and we will look at the point again and correct the article if we find it is wrong.

A commercial relationship is never a reason to write about something, and never a reason to leave it out. Gear that earns us nothing sits alongside gear that does, and gear we could earn from is left out when it does not answer the question the article is asking.

How the money works — which links are affiliate links, how commission is earned, and what advertising appears on the Site — is set out in full in our Affiliate & Advertising Disclosure.

How we research and check what we publish#

Viyolens is a research-led publication. We do not currently take delivery of review units, and we do not test gear ourselves. We read widely, compare what we find, and set it out in a way that helps you decide. You should know that before you weigh our advice.

When we write about an instrument, a piece of studio hardware or a piece of software, we work from sources you can check for yourself:

• Manufacturer specifications, product documentation and owners’ manuals.
• Measurements published elsewhere — technical publications, independent laboratories and manufacturers’ own data sheets.
• Retailer listings, for price, configuration and availability in the UK.
• The experience of players and producers as they describe it publicly — forums, user groups, long-term owner threads, interviews and videos.
• Reference material on how the underlying technique or technology works.

Where a claim comes from a manufacturer, we present it as the manufacturer’s claim and say so in the text. A stated frequency response, a battery life, a latency figure or a wattage is something the maker asserts; it is not something we have verified ourselves. We try to keep that distinction visible rather than quietly absorbing a spec sheet into our own voice.

Where sources disagree — and on gear they often do — we say so rather than picking the tidier answer. Where the evidence is thin, we write that the evidence is thin.

Prices, availability and firmware move quickly. We check them as we write, and again when we update a piece, but we cannot keep every figure current, so always confirm the detail with the manufacturer or retailer before you buy. There is more on that in our Affiliate & Advertising Disclosure.

Sources and attribution#

Where a figure, a quotation or a finding comes from somewhere, we say where, and wherever we can we link to it — the manual, the specification page, the measurement, the interview or the discussion we drew on — so you can read it yourself and reach your own view.

A number carries its origin with it. “The manufacturer quotes 12 hours’ battery life” and “a published measurement recorded nine hours under load” are different statements, and we write them differently.

We do not publish anonymous or unnamed sourcing. Viyolens covers gear and technique; it is not an investigative publication, and it has no need for confidential sources. If we cannot attribute something to a source we are willing to name and link, we do not print it as fact. We would rather say that plainly than set out a procedure for handling confidential material that we will never use.

We quote sparingly and in context, and we link out rather than reproduce at length. If you believe we have used your work without proper credit, or credited it wrongly, write to contact@viyolens.com and we will look at it and put right what needs putting right.

How we use AI tools#

We use AI tools substantially in our work, in research and in drafting. We would rather tell you that directly than leave you to guess, because how an article was made is part of what you need in order to judge it.

What that looks like in practice: the tools help us gather and compare specifications across a field of competing products, summarise long manuals and discussion threads, structure an argument, and produce draft text. The first draft of an article is often machine-assisted.

What the tools do not do is decide anything. A person chooses the subject and the angle. A person is responsible for checking the claims against the sources, correcting what is wrong, cutting what cannot be supported and rewriting what does not hold. A person puts their name on the result and answers for it. Every article on the Site carries a byline, and that byline links to the contributor’s profile, with their photograph and their biography, so you know who stands behind the piece.

Nothing is published unreviewed: we do not put out automatically generated text that no one has read.

The rest of this policy applies to AI-assisted work exactly as it applies to anything else we publish: the same sourcing, the same attribution, the same willingness to correct. A tool cannot carry responsibility for an error, so it does not carry credit for the work either. If a mistake reaches you, it is ours, and it is ours to fix.

Corrections#

We work from published sources — manufacturer specifications, owners’ manuals, official announcements, measurements published by others, and what players and producers say about the gear they own. We do not test or measure gear ourselves, and we do not take delivery of review samples. Our job is to read what is available, compare it and explain it.

Sources can be wrong, and so can we. When that happens, we would rather hear about it than leave it standing.

If you have spotted an error, email contact@viyolens.com. It helps if you include:

• the link to the article, and the sentence or paragraph in question;
• what is wrong, and what you believe the correct information is;
• where that correct information comes from, if you have it — a spec sheet, a manual, a firmware release note or an official product page is the quickest way for us to check.

What you send is read by a person, not an automated filter. We check the claim against the source we used, and against a better source if the one we used turns out to be the problem.

If the error is material — a specification, a price, a model name, a claim about what a piece of gear does, or anything else that could change what you decide to buy — we correct the article and note the correction on the page rather than changing it quietly. The note says what was wrong and what it now says, and the date the article records as last modified moves at the same time.

Small repairs — a typo, a broken link, a misspelled word that changes nothing — we simply fix.

Our articles are researched and drafted with substantial help from AI tools, and checked by a person before they go live. That is one more reason a reader who knows the gear is worth listening to, and why we treat a correction as ordinary editorial work rather than an embarrassment.

Keeping articles current#

Gear writing dates. Prices move, stock comes and goes, models are discontinued and replaced, and a firmware update can change what an instrument or an interface does long after anything was written about it.

So we revise. When a piece needs bringing up to date, we update it where it stands, at the address it already has. We do not republish it as a new article to make it look fresh. A link you saved keeps working, the original publication date stays as it was, and the date the article records as last modified moves with the revision.

Where a revision changes the substance — a different recommendation, a product dropped or replaced, a section rewritten because the facts moved — we say so on the article, in the same way we note a correction. A routine refresh, such as checking whether a model is still on sale, will not always carry a note.

Prices and availability are a snapshot of what we found when we wrote the piece or last revised it, not a quotation. Check the current figure with the manufacturer or the retailer before you buy. How the Site is funded, and why a commercial link never buys a recommendation, is set out in our Affiliate & Advertising Disclosure.

If an article can no longer be made accurate — the gear is long gone and there is nothing useful left to update — we would rather leave it standing as a record of when it was written, and say so on the page, than delete it quietly.

Feedback and complaints#

If something we have published has misled you, treated a product or a reader unfairly, or simply missed the point, write to contact@viyolens.com and put “Complaint” in the subject line so that it is not read as general feedback.

Tell us:

• which article, and which part of it;
• what the problem is — a fact you believe is wrong, coverage you think is one-sided, a commercial interest you think we have not disclosed, the tone, or anything else;
• what you think we should do about it.

Again, a person reads it. We go back to the sources the article was built on, look at the point you have raised, and reply. If you are right, we correct the piece and note the correction on it. If we do not agree with you, we will say why, rather than leave the message unanswered.

We will not put a clock on that. We are a small publication, and we would rather answer properly than quickly.

If our answer does not settle the matter, write back to the same address and say so, and we will look at it again. We are not going to point you at an appeals panel or an ombudsman, because we do not have one and we do not belong to a press regulator. The same inbox is the whole of it.

General feedback is welcome at that address too — what we got right, what we missed, and what you would like us to look at next. We cannot undertake to cover everything that is suggested, but what readers ask for helps shape what we write.

Two things belong elsewhere: how we handle your personal data is set out in our Privacy Policy, and the terms on which you use the Site are in our Terms.

Editorial ethics#

We write about things that cost money, and we may earn a commission when you buy some of them. How the Site is funded is set out in full in our Affiliate & Advertising Disclosure. This section is about the people who write here and the standards we ask them to work to.

A conflict of interest is anything that could reasonably make you wonder whether a piece was written freely: paid or unpaid work for a manufacturer, retailer or distributor; an endorsement or artist arrangement; a financial stake in a brand; a family or personal connection; running or moderating an official community for a company. We ask contributors to declare anything of that kind before they start writing, not after a piece is published, and to tell us if something changes while a piece is in progress.

Where a contributor has a personal or commercial interest in a subject, they do not write the piece that covers it — it goes to someone else. If the connection is impossible to avoid — a contributor's main instrument comes from a small firm they once worked for, say — the article says so plainly, in the article itself, where you will see it rather than at the foot of the page.

We are research-led. We read manufacturer specifications and manuals, owners' documentation, figures and measurements other people have published, and what players and producers say about gear in use, and we bring that together under human editorial judgement. We do not test or measure gear ourselves, and we do not write as though we had. We do not take delivery of review samples, so nothing here is written about a product because a company sent it to us. If either of those things ever changes, we will say so on this page and in the articles it affects.

Contributors may still be offered things from time to time — a discount, an accessory, a ticket, a place at a launch or a trade show. The rules are short:

• Accepting something does not buy coverage. If an offer comes with the expectation of a favourable piece, the answer is no.
• Anything beyond token value must be declared to us before it is accepted.
• Where it is relevant to what you are reading — hospitality at an event that a piece draws on, for instance — it is disclosed in that piece.
• Nothing is accepted with strings attached: no copy approval, no agreed angle, no sight of an article before it is published.

Passing off someone else's writing, research or ideas as our own ends a working relationship with us. Where a fact or a figure comes from somewhere else — a manual, a specification sheet, published research, a discussion thread, another publication — we say where it came from and link to it wherever we can. Quotation is short, attributed and used because the words matter, not as a way of filling a page. We do not rewrite another outlet's article and present it as ours. Our use of AI tools in research and drafting does not soften any of this: material that originates with someone else is still credited, and we check a draft against its sources before it goes out.

The same respect applies to images and audio. We publish only what we have the right to publish: press and manufacturer material issued for editorial use, images licensed from a library, work released under a licence that permits it and credited as that licence requires, and graphics we produce ourselves. We do not lift photographs or recordings from forums, social media or other publications because they happen to be convenient. If you own something that appears on the Site and we have used it without the right to, or credited it wrongly, email contact@viyolens.com and we will look into it and correct the credit or take it down.

Diversity in our coverage and our contributors#

Music is made by everyone, everywhere, on whatever is to hand. Coverage that only reflects one kind of player is not just unfair; it is inaccurate. So this is an editorial standard for us rather than a statement of good intentions.

We write for players and producers at every level and every budget. A first guitar, a second-hand interface or a modest pair of monitors gets the same care as a flagship instrument, because the decision between the cheaper options deserves the better article just as much. We cover gear across genres and traditions, and we try not to treat one scene's assumptions as the default for everybody.

We do not assume who you are. We do not assume your gender, your age, your background, or that music is your living rather than the thing you do after work. We do not assume you read standard notation, that you learned formally, that you have a room you can make noise in, or that your hands, ears and body work the way a manufacturer's designer assumed they would. Where our sources point to something being harder to use left-handed, harder to use with limited mobility, or impractical in a flat with neighbours, that is worth saying, so we say it. We write in plain English and explain the jargon rather than using it to sort readers into those who belong and those who do not.

The same applies to who writes here. Everyone who writes for us is named, with a photograph and a biography on their own profile page, so you can see whose knowledge you are reading and judge it for yourself. When we commission, we look beyond the people who are easiest to find: women and non-binary players, disabled musicians, people from backgrounds the music press has historically overlooked, people working well outside London, and people whose route in was a bedroom and a borrowed laptop rather than a conservatoire. We commission on the strength of the writing and the depth of the knowledge — looking wider is how we find more of both.

We would rather commit to that than publish a percentage. We are a small publication, contributors tell us only what they choose to about themselves, and a demographic table would claim a precision we do not honestly have. What we can be held to is who we ask to write, whose experience shows up in the coverage, and whether a piece treats you as a reader worth explaining things to. If you think we are getting that wrong, we would rather hear it: contact@viyolens.com.

Ownership and funding#

Viyolens is an independent publication covering musical instruments, studio gear and music technology, edited in the UK, from London. It is not owned by, and not part of, any manufacturer, retailer, distributor, record label or advertising client.

Viyolens is published by its owner, who is responsible for the Site and for everything that appears on it.

The Site is free to read, and two things pay for it:

• Affiliate commission — if you follow a link to a retailer and buy something, we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.
• Display advertising — adverts served on the Site, some of them through third-party networks.

Both are set out in full in our Affiliate & Advertising Disclosure, which is the page to read if you want the detail. What matters here is the line between the money and the words: commercial arrangements do not decide what we cover, what we recommend or what order things appear in. We do not sell coverage, we do not publish articles written or approved by a brand, and we do not accept payment for a link inside a piece.

Nobody who buys advertising or runs an affiliate programme sees an article before it is published, and we do not change or remove a published article because an advertiser is unhappy with it. We correct an article because something in it is wrong, not because someone dislikes it.

If our funding ever changes — another income source, a different kind of commercial relationship — we will say so on the Disclosure page. Questions about any specific link, advert or article can go to contact@viyolens.com. Our Privacy Policy, Cookie Policy and Terms cover the rest of how the Site operates.