The Truesound Online Discography Project
Documenting the Acoustical Era (1888 - 1930)
Dear collector,
welcome to the Truesound Online Discography Project!
The aim of this page is to make information about early discs and cylinders recorded acoustically (i.e. without electronic amplification) available, as well as asking for corrections and additions from collectors. Documentation on these early recordings is scanty - in the 1920s, much was simply thrown out when the new electric recording technique made them obsolete (except for some that were considered to be exceptionally important), and two World Wars together with the economical upsets following them have done their part in destroying the companies who made these records, both economically and physically.
This is the reason while for several years now, the author of this page has assembled a database (currently listing some 392,000 sides) of all the bits and pieces of documentation he has come across. This would not have been possible without the unselfish and dedicated help of many collectors, among whom I must mention Michael E. Gunrem (France), John Humbley (France), Alan Kelly (England), Roberto Marcocci (Italy), Mike Loughlin (USA), Michael Quinn (Australia), Hugo Strötbaum (Netherlands), and Axel Weggen (Germany), without forgetting the numerous others who have helped and are still helping by writing in the literature and on the web, and by providing copies of old company catalogues, lists of their holdings, or allowing us to have a look at their collections.
Here on this webpage, I am published excerpts from my database in the form of zipped MS-Excel tables. To access them, you will need PKZIP for Windows to unpack the files, and Microsoft Excel 97 or 2000 (or a compatible spreadsheet software) to view them. To display the occasional diacritics, Cyrillic and Greek characters, your system will need to support Unicode.
Please note that this is very much a
work-in-progress!
Few of the lists you can download here are really "complete" - some are indeed very far from that! - and a number of errors will have crept in, too. They are provided only for the positive information they
contain.
NOTE THAT THESE DISCOGRAPHIES ARE NOT LISTS OF RECORDS ACTUALLY AVAILABLE FROM MY ARCHIVE ON CD OR OTHERWISE, NOR SALES LISTS OF ORIGINAL RECORDS OR TAPES!
We are most happy about any comments, corrections or additions you might have, be it matrix numbers, missing records, misidentified or misspelt titles and artists, or whatever you feel could be improved. Please feel free to e-mail the author!
TRUESOUND ONLINE DISCOGRAPHIES
List of Companies (right-click on link and "save target as" to download)
APGA (Association Phonique des Grands Artistes) (updated 10/2/2003)
ARTIPHON (updated 10/2/2003)
EDISON (cylinders) (updated 10/2/2003)
EDISON (Diamond Discs) (updated 10/2/2003)These listings are taken from the original Edison recording ledgers, courtesy ENHS and Mike Loughlin
EDISON-BELL (cylinders) (updated 10/2/2003)
ODEON (incl. FONOTIPIA) (updated 10/2/2003)
INTERNATIONAL ZON-O-PHONE (updated 10/2/2003)
This page (C) 2004 by Christian Zwarg, Berlin, Germany.