Our approach

Nothing here plays a note

Rhapsodic hosts no audio at all. There are no music files on this domain, no embedded players loaded with ripped tracks, no download links, and no mirrors of anybody's soundtrack. That is a hard rule, not a resourcing problem, and it will not change.

When a soundtrack feature talks about a track, it names the game, the composer or artist, and the release the track sits on, then points you at the official place to hear it: the studio's or artist's own release, the label, or the storefront the game itself sells it through. If there is no legitimate way for you to hear a piece of music, we describe it and leave it at that rather than route you somewhere shady.

The same rule shapes how we cover community content. Player-made charts are a real part of this genre and worth writing about, but we do not link to libraries whose value is the copyrighted audio attached to them. The piece on how rhythm games get their music explains why that line sits where it does.

Where a credit comes from before we print it

Misattributed game music is everywhere, usually because one wrong line in a fan wiki got copied for a decade. So credits here are taken from release metadata, not from memory and not from other blogs. The order we work in:

1. The release itself. The official soundtrack track listing, the in-game credits, or the developer's own announcement of a music pack or featured artist.
2. The artist or label page. A composer's own store page or label listing is usually the most accurate record of what they wrote and what they only arranged.
3. Open release databases, for the cross-check. MainlyMusicBrainz,VGMdb,Discogs andBandcamp for artist-released work.

Two rules keep it honest. If two independent sources disagree about who wrote something, we either say the credit is disputed or we leave the name out. And composition, arrangement and performance stay separate, because crediting an arranger as the composer is the single most common error in this subject.

What a gear guide here can honestly claim

This is the part most gear sites are vague about, so here it is straight: Rhapsodic does not run a latency lab. Nobody here has clamped a headset to a rig and photographed an oscilloscope. No manufacturer sends review units to this site, and there are no scored product reviews anywhere on it.

What the gear pages do instead:

• Explain what a spec means for timing. Why a wired connection behaves predictably and a standard Bluetooth one does not, what a codec's buffer costs you, what refresh rate does and does not fix.
• Give ranges, and label them as ranges. Latency figures on this site are the widely documented behaviour of a technology, quoted as a span rather than a precise number, because the precise number belongs to a specific device on a specific day.
• Recommend by criteria, not by product name. Guides tell you what to look for so you can judge whatever is on the shelf in your country at your budget. That is more useful than a ranked list that goes stale in a season.

If you want a measured number for one specific headset or monitor, take it from someone who actually measures. We would rather tell you that than pretend.

What the date on a page actually means

An update date is a promise about content, so it only moves when the content moves. On this site, the date changes when a setting, a number, a credit, a recommendation, a claim, or a whole section changes. Fixing a typo, a broken link, or something in the site's styling does not touch it.

The commitment on top of that is a full re-read of every guide at least twice a year, and sooner when something forces it: a game patch that moves the settings menu, a music licence that lapses and pulls tracks out of a setlist, a platform that changes how audio is routed. If a page is reviewed and nothing needed changing, the date stays where it was. Bumping it would be a small lie about how fresh the page is, and those add up.

How this is paid for

Rhapsodic is funded out of pocket by the person who runs it. The costs are a domain and static hosting, which is close to nothing, and that is the whole budget. There are no ads, no sponsorships, no paid placements, no paid links, and no affiliate links on the site as it stands.

Nothing on this site has ever been ranked, mentioned, or linked in exchange for money, and no offer to do so has been accepted. If affiliate links are ever added, for example on a gear page, they will be disclosed on the page itself and in theprivacy and disclosure notice, and they will not change what gets recommended. Advice would still be written the same way, by criteria.

Things this site will not do

• Host, mirror, or link to ripped or copyrighted audio.
• Take payment for a ranking, a mention, a link, or a kind word.
• Publish a measurement as our own when we did not take it.
• Claim expertise, qualifications, or hands-on testing that did not happen.
• Print a credit we could not stand behind from a real source.
• Rewrite the substance of a page and leave the update date untouched.

Tell us we got it wrong

Corrections are the fastest way this site gets better, and they are genuinely welcome, even blunt ones. Email [email protected].

The useful shape of a correction:

• The page address, and the sentence or table row that is wrong.
• What it should say instead.
• Where that comes from, if you have a source handy. A track listing or an official page settles most of it.

Every message is read. This is a one-person site, so a reply can take a few days, and a busy week can make it longer. A factual error gets fixed as soon as it is confirmed, and if the fix changes what the page actually says, the update date moves with it. If you hold rights to music or a game written about here and want something corrected or removed, use the same address and it will be handled quickly.

Everything published here goes out under one editorial byline. Thebyline page explains exactly what that name is and what it stands for. The contact page covers the other things worth sending.