EVIDENCE & EDITORIAL STANDARDS
Trace the evidence. Then build the sound.
Guitar Atlas records documented artist use separately from practical recreation proposals. A confirmation means the stated claim was compared with its source, not that an entire rig or sound has been fully validated.
Start with an era and a purpose.
An artist’s equipment changes between albums, tours and song sections. Evidence about one period is not automatically evidence about a different recording.
Confirm individual claims.
Model, date, routing and knob settings are separate claims. Prioritize direct accounts from the artist, technician or engineer and record the relevant passage or video timestamp. Label builder, manufacturer and collection records separately. Reprints of one interview are not independent sources.
Unconfirmed does not mean false.
An item may await a fresh comparison or lack sufficient evidence. A pedal on a board does not establish that it was engaged for a particular song. A signature product does not establish its use on a recording.
Separate matching hardware from substitutes.
The original / matching-specification path uses the equipment’s native controls. Manufacturer documentation establishes product functions separately from actual performance settings. The substitute path compensates for hardware differences. Both paths label suggestions separately from documented values; unknown settings are never filled by copying the other path.
Separate original settings from suggestions.
Retain the units or clock positions in direct accounts. Normalized 0–10 values in recreation guides are editorial suggestions, not acoustic equivalences between devices. Leave undocumented original values unknown.
Manage photos separately from evidence.
Distinguish artist portraits, actual rigs, stock product references and replicas or other generations. Do not change a documented model to match an available photo. When an exact photo is unavailable, show the model and evidence first.
Modeler guides need their own hardware tests.
Check device, firmware, models, parameter ranges, DSP and output setup, then compare a common dry guitar signal at matched levels. All current modeler guides await hardware testing. A similar sound does not prove historical artist use.