The Evolution of Ringtones

Through the years, we have watched mobile phones advance both in design and function. The continuous growth of the mobile phone industry gave birth to various technologies and brought about the advancement of multimedia products such as operator logos, wallpapers, MMS, and ringtones as an answer to the growing needs of the consumers.

By definition, a ringtone is a custom sound, tune or an audio clip that plays for 10-20 seconds when a mobile phone receives a call. Before 2001, the only function of the ringtone was to alert the mobile phone user of an incoming call so there were very limited tunes available.

Mobile ringtones started as indistinct, quasi-musical tunes but over the last 10 years or so, they have evolved from simple one-note tunes to full stereo tracks. This transformation has been corroborated by a shift in the format technology used in the developmental stages of ringtones. The ringtone format’s rapid evolution has been made possible by the fact that a typical mobile phone user changes his or her phone every two or three years.

There are 5 types of ringtones:

1. Monophonic ringtones

Monophonic ringtones are the first-generation ringtones. They are called monophonic because they only play a single type of musical tone at a time. Monophonic ringtones are generally short and simple and consist of a series of tones played in sequence at different frequencies or varying pitches.

Monophonic ringtones are available mostly in RTTTL format which is compatible with most Nokia models. Sony Ericsson also developed their own format such as iMelody and eMelody.

2. Polyphonic ringtones

Polyphonic ringtones are second-generation ringtones. These are ringtones that use polyphony to simulate the sound of music using preset instruments and notes played simultaneously. These ringtones can play several notes and instruments through a large number of sound channels (or instruments) categorized as 4-notes, 16-notes, 32-notes, 48-notes, 64-notes, and 72-notes. Polyphonic ringtones are capable of playing actual music notes but without the lyrics and the vocals.

Polyphonic ringtones first came out in Japan around 2001 and utilized a sequenced recording method called MIDI. MIDI recordings appointed the instrument to play a particular note at a given time and then the playback device determined the actual instrument that came out. Later on, a specific format called SP-Midi emerged and became the standard for polyphonic ringtones.

Polyphonic ringtones may sound like recorded music but not quite like Truetones because polyphonic ringtones use digitally encoded instrument tracks to digitally recreate the sound of a song while Truetones are actual song clips.

3. Truetones

Truetone ringtones are the third-generation ringtones. They have several names such as: Music Tones, Master Tones, Real Tones, Real Music, Covertones, MP3 Ringtones and Superphonic Ringtones. These types of ringtones are digitally recorded and allow customization so you can personalize your mobile phone with real sound and sound effects.

Unlike monophonic or polyphonic ringtones, truetones are able to use full, high-fidelity recording including vocals as ringtones. They are encoded in high quality formats such as MP3, AAC, WAV, WMA and are often excerpts from pop songs and the blues.

The first format used as Truetones was AMR-WB, which was integrated into Nokia phones in 2004. The new formats allow sections of the original master track to be used as ringtones. Cover versions are more commonly used by ringtone businesses to cut on licensing cost paid to record labels.

A recent innovation to Truetones is the “singtone”, whereby a mobile user records his or her voice to a popular music track and it’s automatically adjusted to sound in key. The ringtone can then be downloaded or forwarded to friends’ mobile phones.

Nowadays, truetones can also be used as text alert tones. This feature and support for ringtones is being built into  new cellphone models of leading brand manufacturers.

5. Videotones

Videotones are the fourth-generation ringtones. They are short video clips with sound that play automatically When a handset receives a call. Some cellphones have videotones that announce each call with the caller’s name.

Ringtones have come a long way in terms of format and sound quality. With the convergence of standard digital music formats and ringtones, the format technology of ringtones appears to be at a tipping point. It seems that ringtones are now part of the mainstream music market, rather than operating in a separate world.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.