Vox record and speaking machines AG
The Vox record and speaking machine AG in Berlin existed from 1920 to 1929 and sold records , reels and playback devices.
founding
The Vox record and speaking machine AG was founded on December 30, 1920 under the name Tegesti and so entered in the company register on February 19, 1921. On May 10, 1921, she received her later name, under which she became known. Vox had its headquarters in the Vox house on Potsdamer Strasse , where the recording studio was also located, but also had mechanical workshops in Berlin-Friedenau , an assembly plant in Berlin SW , a record factory in Steglitz , Barsekowstrasse, and a drive factory in Winterbach , several housing factories for record cabinets in Bremen as well as a radio shopping center in Viktoriastraße 33 in Berlin .
The parent company of Vox and other companies was the main company for industries , which was founded in 1921 by Otto Klung , August Stauch and Curt Stille . The main financier was August Stauch, who made his fortune in the diamond trade in South West Africa and saved it over the post-war period. The Vox first appeared at the Leipzig spring fair in 1922.
The name "Vox" was chosen from the Latin word for voice and was protected as a trademark . Wilhelm Deffke implemented this word graphically as a trademark by designing a stylized Art Deco "Negro head" in profile, the lips of which were wide open for singing, thus forming the letter "V". The "O" was recognizable in the round shape of the eye, the "X" was partly in the hairstyle. This characteristic trademark appeared not only - mostly printed in red and in a triangular frame - on the records, but also on the other Vox products. These included, among other things, a player that was made almost entirely of wood according to Curt Stille's wishes, with which the practices of violin making should be taken up, the case device "Voxonette" and the "Vox concert case". A special feature were 17.5 cm shellac records without a center hole, which could only be played with a special platter, but the conventional records produced by Vox are likely to have been more widespread.
plates
Records were produced with a diameter of 25 and 30 cm, which were designed for a rotational speed of 80 / min. They were initially sold in three price categories, which could be recognized by the colors of the labels (red, green and blue). From 1925 children's plates with a diameter of 15 cm were added, which were sold under the brand name "Teddy".
The world's rarest jazz record is likely to come from the Vox studio; In any case, in September 1924 Vox announced a record with recordings by the "Negro Jazz Orchestra" G. Ruthland Clapham , which has not yet been found in any collection. There is also no evidence of the foreign language special directories for recordings in Russian , Polish , Latvian , French and English as well as other languages, which Vox referred to in a publication after three years of recording activity. Artists like Georges Baklanoff , Grete Stückgold , Fritz Krauss, Alfred Piccaver , Petar Raitscheff , Emmy Heckmann-Bettendorf , Emanuel List , Arnold Földesy , Erich Kleiber , Eugen d'Albert , Conrad Ansorge , Bernard Etté , Gabriel Formiggini , Georges Boulanger and Tino Valeria had (partly exclusive) contracts with Vox.
Until 1926, the public was informed about new record offers through monthly lists that were printed in the Phonographische Zeitschrift . After that, their own in-house magazine was set up, the Vox-Nachrichten . This magazine was published until May 1927.
Orientation about the contents of individual panels was also possible using the order numbers. The 1,000 series stood for orchestral recordings, the 2,000 numbers were dedicated to women's voices and the 3,000 to men's voices. The 4,000 series was reserved for polyphonic chants, in the 5,000 series comedy was published. The 6,000 series comprised instrumental recordings and the 8,000 series orchestral recordings. Higher numbers denoted recordings in different languages, for example the 10,000 series was assigned to Dutch , the 20,000 series to Indian and the 30,000 series to Swedish recordings, from No. 35,000 Czech and from No. 40,000 Finnish recordings were to be found. The children's records were in the Teddy-T series, for Dutch children's records there was the Teddy-HT series and the Sperling SP series was set up for language courses. The larger diameter of 30 cm is indicated by a zero or an asterisk in front of the order number. Acoustic recordings also had the suffix “-A” after the die number if they were 30 cm panels from Germany; the suffix "-C" was used for similar records for foreign countries. Acoustic recordings on 25 cm records were marked with the suffix “-B” for Germany and “-D” for foreign countries. 15 cm records that had been recorded using the acoustic method had the suffix “-Z” in Germany and “-E” abroad. In Germany, electrical recordings were marked with "-AA" and "-BB" for the larger and smaller plates, for other countries they were marked with "-F" (30 cm) and "-G" (25 cm). 15 cm plates were apparently not picked up electrically.
Decline
The introduction of the electrical recording process around the mid-1920s posed problems for the Vox. The Westinghouse patent could not or would not buy them, why own admission procedures had to be developed. The results were initially unsatisfactory. From 1924 on, plates with electrical recordings went on sale, but were not initially labeled as such. Names such as "Elektroaufnahme" or "Elektro-Vox" only appeared later on the record labels. The Vox-Nachrichten did not mention electrical recordings with Elisabeth Bergner for the first time until 1926 .
Another problem was the faltering business relationship with US business partners. The Vox Corporation of America , which was founded in New York , was supposed to help reduce production costs by exchanging dies, but the Radiex was only able to take over a few titles move. From 1927 these efforts were abandoned - apparently only one record was produced by the Vox Corporation of America . Instead of US business partners, the focus was now on European ones. The Vox took over in autumn 1928 in Germany the sole distributor from England coming DuoPhone unbreakable records . She also tried to initiate the production of unbreakable records with the Swiss Kalophon . However, the attempts were unsuccessful.
The decline of the Vox record and speaking machine company was sealed by the global economic crisis . In the spring of 1929 she stopped her record production; the production facilities in Steglitz became the property of Isiphon , later Electrocord and Cordy . Plans to re-create the Vox brand were expressed by the former owner of Isi-Werke, but not realized. Hertie took over the matrices from Vox and used them to produce cheap records , later the Crystalate Company (Kristall) bought the recordings and sold them under their own label. When Lindström took over Crystalate in 1937, the Vox recordings were no longer used.
Televox
Otto Klung registered the “Televox” brand name at the commercial court in May 1930 and founded the Televox record company in 1939 , which had its headquarters in what was then Neue Königsstraße (today: Rathausstraße ) and its branch in Tauentzienstrasse and also enabled amateur recordings. Plate pressing took place only after a binding order and from an edition of 200 pieces. A jazz - anthology was just before the start of the Second World War started and could not be continued longer. Between 1941 and 1943, however, Klung was able to distribute some recordings as custom-made items; he also sold records of other brands in his shop. Klung's recording technician Gerd Pick recorded an illegal jazz jam session on April 3, 1942 , which was only released for the first time 44 years later. The Televox headquarters fell victim to the bombing raids ; the branch at Tauentzienstrasse 5 survived the war and was only closed in 1953 when Klung saw it threatened by the almost neighboring KaDeWe .
Individual evidence
- ↑ https://www.berliner-woche.de/steglitz/c-kultur/schallplatten-aus-der-dampf-waschanstalt_a138473
- ↑ Nonvaleur Shop
- ↑ Lotz calls the name form “Strauch”, while the DNB calls it “Stauch”.
- ↑ Video: Voxonette in action
- ↑ So Lotz, the DNB , however, lists issues up to 3/1928.
- ↑ In 1947 a record brand called Vox appeared again in the USA, although it had nothing to do with the original Vox.
- ^ Company history according to Lotz