The Ringtones of Tomorrow

Ringing tones have been part of telephone systems since the early days of telephone communication – hearkening back, perhaps, to the days of Morse code and the dash and dit sounds produced by those pioneering machines. Traditionally, ringing tones used to be limited to the actual ringing sounds incorporated into rotary and touch-tone telephones to signal an incoming voice call. For this purpose, a simple bell-ringing sound or the equivalent would typically suffice, and such a sound would run until the phone’s receiver was lifted from the cradle.

With the advent of the cellular telephone, more and more varied ring tones have made their presence felt. The cellular telephone’s popularity, while due in large part to its mobility and convenience, is also due to the individuality it affords consumers. This is something that cellular phone manufacturers and promoters have taken full advantage of, and something that forms the core of many of their marketing philosophies. Of course, ringtones are key elements to building one’s individuality through his cell phone settings, and the opportunities to customize and tailor-make the tones have become as varied as the customization options for the physical aspect of the phones themselves.

Originally, manufacturers like Nokia and Alcatel [among others] provided a set of optional tones to associate with incoming voice calls. These tones were mostly MIDI-type sets of sampled and/or looped beeps at varied pitches, some carrying simplified song melodies and even simulated bell-ringing sounds. Phones came with a pre-set lineup of available tones, and additional tones had to be added to the phones via a computer linkup though a specialized data cable.  Savvy service providers – as well as multimedia companies and websites – would also come to provide an ordering service for additional tones, usually themed ones clustered around a popular celebrity, movie or music album currently being promoted. A set of text message codes would typically be given; users would send one, corresponding to the desired tone, to a preset number. Website ordering was of a similar system, but would also be affected by provider ranges for sending the tones to cell phones.

Later phone models would eventually contain preloaded ring tone composing programs, which provided users with a rudimentary means to put together their own MIDI-type ring tones. These were typically as monophonic as the previous generation of phones’ ring tones, though, and users had to invest some time in figuring out how to input and tweak notes and pitches to match their desired sound or melody.

Before long, pre-made polyphonic ringtones were the mode of the day, providing a more MIDI-true experience with blending synthetic instruments. The usual promotions for pop culture events and artists accompanied the rise of these polyphonic tones, and soon both polyphonic and monophonic ring tones were offered as options for consumers and fans to text in and download. By this time phones were also offering the option to associate certain tones with certain callers or caller groups, allowing for even further customization and individualization of one’s phone settings according to the people whom they expected to call them – separating school- or work-related groups from family and relatives, and even subdividing those categories in turn.

This system prevailed with the next iteration of ring tones — the advent of memory cards and MP3-format-compatible phones allowed for the use of “true tones”, also known as “superphonic” ringtones. These were essentially clips of actual music, which could extend to even as long as a full song itself as opposed to continually looping MIDI-style samples of a song’s approximated melody. File management software was largely made obsolete by the fact that most memory cards could be treated in much the same way as a USB flash drive or diskette – copy an MP3 file to it and return it to the phone and use the file. Sound editing software, however, was soon on the rise, as an increasingly tech-capable user base discovered simple ways of trimming their favorite songs to suit their desired ringing portion and ring length before looping.

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