Sound Databases and Collections

Sound Databases and Collections

Online databases and collections of music and audio sound files in various sound formats.

  • 20th Century German Vinyl
    Music and recordings, primarily from the era of World War II.
  • Archive of Contemporary Music
    A not-for-profit music library dedicated to collecting, preserving, and providing information about popular music from around the world.
  • Tina Argumedo and Lucrecia Hug Collection
    The Tina Argumedo and Lucrecia Hug Collection of 78s contains discs collected in Argentina beginning in the mid-1930s. It comprises primarily tango music, with boleros, sambas, mambo and other dance music. The collection was donated by D’Anna Alexander, Michael and Daniel Alexander, and Débora Simcovich.
  • Barrie H. Thorpe / Batavia Illinois Public Library Collection
    78rpm shellac discs donated from the Batavia Public Library Thorpe Collection to the Archive of Contemporary Music and digitized by George Blood, LP for the Internet Archive.
  • Boston Public Library Sound Archive
    The Boston Public Library (BPL) sound collection includes hundreds of thousands of audio recordings in a variety of historical formats, including wax cylinders, 78 rpms, and LPs. The recordings span many genres, including classical, pop, rock, jazz, and opera – from 78s produced in the early 1900s to LPs from the 1980s. This audio collection can be heard by new audiences of scholars, researchers and music lovers worldwide.
  • Brazil Radio and DJ Collection
    Recordings, CDs and other audio from various Brazil DJs and Sources.
  • David Chomowicz and Esther Ready Collection
    This is a unique group of more than 4000 LPs and 78rpm discs, the vast majority pressed in Latin America or the Caribbean. Of special interest are the hundreds of Cuban recordings and more than a thousand Tango discs from Argentina.
  • Classical Archives
    Classical Archives is a music website dedicated to, and designed especially for, a vital but often neglected audience - lovers of classical music. The largest classical music site on the web.
  • The Classical Composers Database
    Classical music composers, compositions, sheet music, recordings, MP3, books, DVDs, news, and more.
  • Classical Composer Gallery
    Here are quick and easy reference guides to the all-time great composers, a roster that they're always expanding. For each composer, you'll find vital statistics (birth, death, nationality), a short biographical sketch and a few fun facts, plus a basic guide to the music and a list of weblinks and resources, plus a few of the most famous tunes and one or two videos. Whether you're heading off to a concert, writing a research paper, looking for reliable, current information, or just want to explore some cool music and video, this is the first stop on your web search.
  • Classical Guitar Midi Archives
    2984 classical guitar Song MIDI files from 89 composersWelcome to the fantastic world of classical guitar. In this site, you will find classical guitar pieces, in midi format, for one and more guitars: actually 4767 MIDI files from 96 composers. Information on how to create midi files and a tutorial on the tablature notation system is presented.
  • Classical MIDI Connection
    The Classical MIDI Connection is designed for classical music enthusiasts. It provides an easy method of accessing MIDI sequences of classical music. You can browse the site and listen to and/or save any of the sequences available.
  • Classical MIDI Files
    MIDI Classical Music in Composer order (alphabetically by surname). These pieces are also available as MP3 files in their Classical MP3 Section and as Sheet Music in their Classical Sheet Music Section.
  • Classical MIDI Organ Stop
    A sizeable collection of classical and religious pipe organ sequences.
  • Classical MIDI Resource
    A comprehensive collection of Classical music, performed by the Web's most talented, MIDI and MP3 - savvy musicians. Also featured along with the MIDI files are MP3 audio files, rendered on state-of-the-art equipment from selected MIDI files posted on CMR, or the composer's own, also with an emphasis on quality.
  • DJ Screw Discography
    The collected mixtapes of DJ Screw (1971-2000), a pioneering Houston, TX based hip hop DJ known for creating the chopped and screwed DJ technique.
  • Digital History: Historic Music
    This database contains historical music for educational use that their research indicates is copyright free.
  • Larry Edelman Collection
    This collection is comprised mostly of Square Dance calling and music, and couples dancing music.
  • Encyclopaedia Metallum: The Metal Archives
    A heavy metal encyclopedia with information, complete discography, links, images, and reviews.
  • FindSounds
    Search the web for sounds and sound effects for free. Offers directory, keyword and sonic similarity search functions.
  • FindSounds
    Search the web for sounds and sound effects for free. Offers directory, keyword and sonic similarity search functions.
  • Folksoundomy: Nepalese Music and Musicians
    General collection of Nepalese Music and Musicians.
  • Football (Soccer) Club Songs
    A library of Songs and hymns from Football Clubs, National Teams and the World Cup. They've got 661 Songs and you can listen to them all in MP3 format.
  • Football Fight Songs
    A library of Football fight Songs and music from the NFL and NCAA. They have 1031 Songs that you can listen to and download in MP3 format.
  • Games Theme Songs
    Video game theme music and Songs from 33,932 video games. Listen to them all in MP3 format.
  • Halloween Songs
    A library of Halloween sound effects and scary music. They have 598 Songs and you can listen to and download them all in MP3 format.
  • Halloween Songs for Your All Hallows' Eve Party Playlist
    Turn your Halloween bash into a Monster Mash! These are some of our favorite Halloween songs, from hallowed fright-night classics to perennial pop anthems to movie soundtracks to the spookiest radio hits - well-known and obscure - we think you'll find songs to have your party people rising from the dead to bust out spooky moves all night long.
  • David Hinckley Collection
    For more than 25 years Mr. Hinckley has donated thousands of books, LPs and CDs to The ARChive of Contemporary Music. With the advent of the Great78Project David donated a superb collection of more than 300 Country, Cowboy, Western Swing and Hillbilly 78s. Great stuff including discs by the Carter Family, Bill Boyd, Delmore Brothers, Pie Plant Pete, The Skillet Lickers, Arkansas Woodchoppers – 22 by Lefty Frizzell alone. David was the Music and Media critic for the New York Daily News for 35 years.
  • Hip Hop Mixtapes
    In hip hop's earliest days, the music only existed in live form, and the music was spread via tapes of parties and shows. Hip hop mixtapes first appeared in the mid-1970s in New York City, featuring artists such as Kool Herc and Afrika Bambaataa. As more tapes became available, they began to be collected and traded by fans. In the late 70's into the early 80's DJs began recording mixtapes out of their homes, referring to them as House Tapes. DJs such as Harold G. (who later became known as Whiz Kid) and DJ Super V would create personalized House Tapes which would eventually circulate throughout New York City. In the mid-1980s, DJs, such as Brucie B, began recording their live music and selling their own mixtapes, which was soon followed by other DJs such as Kid Capri and Doo Wop. Ron G moved the mixtape forward in the early 1990s by blending R&B a cappellas with hip hop beats (known as "blends"). Blend tapes became increasingly popular by the mid-1990s, and fans increasingly looked for exclusive tracks and freestyles on the tapes. Also since the 1990s, it describes releases used to promote one or more new artists, or as a pre-release by more established artists to promote upcoming "official" albums. In the hip hop scene, mix tape is often displayed as a single term mixtape. It is now a word to generally describe full-length albums released for free, which is the modern form of mixtape that was made a popular following by 50 Cent and his group G-Unit in the early 2000s, sometimes containing all original music, other times composed of freestyles and remixes of popular tracks.
  • Internet Archive Live Music Archive
    Internet Archive is a non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites, and more. Limit by material type and search for titles.
  • International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP)
    Sharing the world’s public domain music.
  • Jazz Music Library
    The largest and most comprehensive collection of streaming jazz available online — with thousands of jazz artists, ensembles, albums, and genres.
  • KUSF Collection
    KUSF is the University of San Francisco’s radio station in San Francisco, California. This non-commercial student-run station originally broadcast on-air from 1963-1977 as an AM station, and from 1977-2011 on the FM dial. This free-form and freewheeling college station was celebrated both nationally and internationally for its innovative music programming. In 2012 the University of San Francisco donated a large portion of the KUSF collection of 78’s and LP’s to the Internet Archive. Many LPs were digitized as a pilot project, and starting in 2018 the 78s are being digitized.
  • Kunst der Fuge
    The largest classical music resource in .mid files. You may listen to 5 files/day for free or you may subscribe to listen to or download unlimited MIDI & files including theiret music collection in PDF format.
  • Daniel McNeil Collection
    Collection of 22,359 ten and twelve inch 78rpm shellac discs donated from Daniel McNeil to the Archive of Contemporary Music and digitized by George Blood, LP for the Internet Archive.
  • Music Library & Bill Schurk Sound Archives
    The Music Library and Bill Schurk Sound Archives (ML/BSSA) support curriculum in Music, Popular Culture, and American Culture Studies. With almost a million recordings, the Bill Schurk Sound Archives represents the largest collection of popular music recordings in an academic library in North America. Their collections also include books, scores, and video formats covering music studies from multiple angles. Users from the Bowling Green State University campus, the community, and the world are welcome to use our materials on site. They have something for everyone!
  • Musopen
    Provides recordings, sheet music, and textbooks to the public for free, without copyright restrictions. Put simply, their mission is to set music free.
  • Mutopia Project
    Music that's free to download, modify, print, copy, distribute, perform, and record – all in the Public Domain or under Creative Commons licenses, in PDF, MIDI, and editable LilyPond file formats.
  • The National Jukebox
    The Library of Congress presents the National Jukebox, which makes historical sound recordings available to the public free of charge. The Jukebox includes recordings from the extraordinary collections of the Library of Congress National Audio-Visual Conservation Center and other contributing libraries and archives. Recordings in the Jukebox were issued on record labels now owned by Sony Music Entertainment, which has granted the Library of Congress a gratis license to stream acoustical recordings. At launch, the Jukebox includes more than 10,000 recordings made by the Victor Talking Machine Company between 1901 and 1925. Jukebox content will be increased regularly, with additional Victor recordings and acoustically recorded titles made by other Sony-owned U.S. labels, including Columbia, OKeh, and others.
  • RPTF/ARSC Sound Collections Database
    This database of sound collections is a project of the Library of Congress NRPB, RPTF, and ARSC.
  • Recycled Records
    The digitized items in this collection were donated to Internet Archive from Recycled Records.
  • Roulette
    The Roulette archive is a digital repository of live audio and video recordings, concert listings, posters, photos, press, and ephemera, all documenting Roulette’s history as a center of avant-garde music and intermedia performance on New York’s “downtown” scene since 1978.
  • The Silvis Woodshed
    A collection of midi files and tools to help singers learn their notes so that they can be ready to turn it into music when they go to rehearsal.
  • Song of America
    Song of America is a project of the HampSong Foundation. Their goal is to build and curate a comprehensive archive of American Song that tells the story of our culture and nation, through the eyes of our poets and the ears of our composers. They invite performers, students, and all lovers of American Song to explore the work of American composers and poets; to see what poems have been set by more than one composer; to explore the background of American art Song. Listen to the Songs, read about them, download the scores, and find links to relevant websites for more information. Song of America.net is an ever-expanding database and a resource for exploring the connections between poetry and music, history and culture.
  • Sound - The British Library
    Their sound collections feature over 1 million discs, 185,000 tapes, and many other sound and video recordings from all over the world.
  • Michael Strider Collection
    Mr. Strider rescued his dad’s collection of about 300 seventy-eights. He donate the entire collection to avoid sorting and selling separately, cataloged them all, and kindly dropped them off to the IA in San Francisco. Our favorite’s from this batch are the blues discs by Elle Mae Morse.
  • TV Theme Songs
    TV Theme music and Songs from 32,913 different television shows. Listen to them all in MP3 format.
  • TV Ad Songs
    Catchy Songs and jingles from great commercials and ads. Listen to all 2,287 of them in MP3 format.
  • Virtual Gramophone: Canadian Historical Sound Recordings
    Virtual Gramophone is a multimedia website devoted to the early days of Canadian recorded sound, providing an overview of the 78-rpm era in Canada. The database contains information for 78-rpm and cylinder recordings released in Canada from 1900 to 1950, as well as foreign recordings featuring Canadian artists and/or compositions. Each database record provides information about an original recording, such as its title and performer, relevant dates, and details about the label and disc.
  • Last updated: 6/22/2023

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