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Barbesurvey: Ring Tones

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14:39 / 12.01.06

Sekhmet’s Old Coots Lounge thread reminds me that once upon a time, telephones used to ring brrring brring. These days the world is a Tourettic jukebox of polyphonic jingles, ditties, theme tunes and pop hooks. As the Arctic Monkeys tell us, there is only new music so there are new ring tones. And true enough, they’ve been outselling singles for a couple of years now.

So, lightweight survey thread time. What’s your ring tone? Do you change it regularly? Do you download them from services like Jamster? Upload them as mp3s? Does anyone compose their own?

Mine is currently Hey Bulldog by the Beatles. Perfect punchy opening which works well with ascending volume. And it makes me feel unusually alert and energised for answering calls. Hello!

What about you?

14:44 / 12.01.06

SW - good choice,

Mine was the theme to Halloween, is now Love Can Tear Us Apart by Joy Division.

It has the useful sudden opening that alerts you instantly to something ringing in your pocket, and also is a good song.

14:47 / 12.01.06

I am an authentic old coot so I just have the normal ringtone. I just don't get why all those little jingles are so attractive. Is there any hope for me?

14:54 / 12.01.06

I used to have Ace of Spades, but then I got a new phone and it sounds rubbish on it. So briiing briiing for me, for now, till I find something I like.

14:57 / 12.01.06

I, too, have the old fashioned ringing. the funniest part is that, when it rings, people look at me like I'm insane, and laugh at it.

15:02 / 12.01.06

I'm not against musical ringtones per se, but I really don't understand the whole Jamster phenomenon and why kids seem so happy to be regularly fleeced for some tinny rendition of the fucking Crazy Frog or whatever.

Generally, I'm a "ring ring" man, but currently using one I made myself in Logic. It's just some distorted ascending tones (a bit like 'Trio' on old Nokias) and I ought to do another/better one, but it's just the right piercing frequency to be heard through my pocket.

A question: If you still use the default Nokia Tune as your ringtone in this here year of our lord 2006 - why? Surely it's the most annoying one of all. I thought that after Triggerhappy TV I'd never have to hear it again...

15:03 / 12.01.06

My employer's cell phone plays a can-can.

It's... distracting, sometimes. He sits right next to me. We all jump.

Sometimes we dance.

paranoidwriter waves hello

15:05 / 12.01.06

I've got the tune from "Close Encounters".

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

15:05 / 12.01.06

Ariadne- I used to have Ace Of Spades, too! Then it was Ride Of The Valkyries. Now it's a MIDIed rendition of Closer by Nine Inch Nails, which has the percussion down pat but makes the vocal line sound like loungecore. I kinda like the mix.

15:05 / 12.01.06

I delved into my video game library, created loops from some of my favorites music and dumped the mp3s on my phone via bluetooth. Not to hard when you have the experience and appropriate software to do so. I'm not big into "proper" music tracks unless they're super lo-fi. Just a preference tied to the technology I guess.

Tracks include:
The theme from Silent Hill 1
"Game Over" track from LifeForce (Salamander)
"Character death" in Revenge of Shinobi
"Sega" - female choral at startup
"Nintendo presents" Coin Sound
"Fairy appears" - Zelda: A Link to the Past
"Dungeon Theme" - The Legend of Zelda
"Underground Theme" - Super Mario Brothers
"Skeleton Key Theme" - Shadowgate
and... two Rygar themes.

15:13 / 12.01.06

I just don't get why all those little jingles are so attractive. Is there any hope for me?

Yes, Loomis, yes there is. I was always a bring bring person too (and that real old fashioned bakelite phone sound that Sony Ericssons offer), but I’ve recently become converted since getting a phone I can upload mp3s to.
It’s just nice to have a sound you actually like alerting you to a call. Puts you in a much nicer frame of mind for the call. A piercing ring ring sound gets the call off on a very different footing, I found. I used to be all ‘Yes, what?’ and now I’m that bit more ‘Hey hey!’, I swear.

15:14 / 12.01.06

I just use one of the ringtones that came on my Nokia... I think it's called "Polska". It's kind of annoying, which is why I picked it - I figured not many other people would have it, so there's less of the "Is that my phone? Is that your phone? Whose phone is ringing?" panic that ensues with the more popular standard rings.

I hate telephones anyway, particularly cell phones. Newfangled artifacts of Satan, they are, goldurnit!

15:27 / 12.01.06

I keep mine on vibrate and so have never heard it ring.

15:35 / 12.01.06

I have a couple of asigned tones - mirror in the bathroom, so you wanna be a boxer, black tambourine, viva lost vegas, and a mash-up of just can't get enough/purple pills

15:39 / 12.01.06

Shamefully, I have the CTU ringtone on my phone from 24. I really like ringtones that, you know, sound like phones (but can't stand 'old phone' rings).

I promise I don't strut around town thinking I'm Jack Bauer or anything.

15:40 / 12.01.06

I got a new phone for Christmas, one that can take ringtones off my computer and stuff. It’s ace.

Er, so I plumped for Sloppy Drunk Blues, by Sonny Boy Williamson. He has a pretty fab harmonica solo in that, and a wailing harmonica sounds kinda phone-like, I reckon, so I just nicked that bit and looped it. I don’t want anything *too* insistent, just a noise that stands out enough to catch my attention. And it works pretty well like that, some people don’t even hear it, don’t even register the sound.

I remember - I think it was on Home Truths - a family talking about their ‘family whistle’ - like, a couple of bars of a tune that everyone in that family knows how to whistle, that they can use to always find each other in crowds. It’s the same sort of thing, isn’t it - not a particularly loud noise, but one that only *your* ears are going to pick out of a general hubbub.

17:41 / 12.01.06

I've got a midi of "Punk Rock Girl" as my general ring, Tenacioius D's "Tribute" as my fiance-specific ring. Good times.

Phex: Dorset Doom

17:57 / 12.01.06

Theme tune from Pulp Fiction. Instead of saying 'I've got to take this call' I tell my friends 'everybody be cool! this is a robbery!'.

18:43 / 12.01.06

My phone clucks like a chicken. It's one of the default rings and I'm too cheap to shell out money on a ringtone. (I do find the "old phone brrrrrring! to be aesthetically pleasing though, and may have to buy that tone.) The chicken tone has the benefits of being impossible to ignore and so dorky that no-one else will use it.

If I had the ability or inclination to add sound to my phone, I'd love to create the tone myself, a quick banjo riff or maybe five seconds of white noise...

18:51 / 12.01.06

The only way in which my mobile phone is personalised is that it has a photograph of Naota from FLCL as the backdrop. It's that cool iconic black and white shot of him looking bereft atop the rubble clutching Haruko's Rickenbacker bass.

This picture, in fact:

Madman in the ruins.

19:20 / 12.01.06

Ash Burn Baby Burn as my genrall Ringtone and Goldfrapps Strict Machine for when someone special rings me.

Mon Oncle Ignatius

21:18 / 12.01.06

I used to have the Butthole Surfers' "Hey" on my old Nokia, converted from an OctaMED cover I did of the song. Now I've got a new phone which can play MIDI files I'd like to have it on there again, but I need to be bothered to set up the Amiga one more time in order to convert the file.

So instead I have a MIDI version of Kraftwerk's "The Model", with Gary Numan's "Cars" and also "I Feel Love" knocking around. I supect "Ring Of Fire" might be going on there soon though, or "Folsom Prison Blues". There are some interesting fractal MIDI tunes around too, and if I can get MP3s onto the phone I might be ripping tracks from the Touch compilation of avant-ringtones from a few years back. Either that or sampling Merzbow.

And yes, I've had the handset just ring like a phone that rings on occasion. I suspect the reason I have a tune play is that it's unlikely that anyone else in the vicinity will have the same ringtone and cause much patting of pockets every time a call comes in on the bus.

22:37 / 12.01.06

I honestly can't believe that so many Barbelith posters that I like and respect have musical ringtones.

There is nothing so likely to cause UNTAMED HATE AND ANGER in the Boboss than musical ringtones.

00:47 / 13.01.06

You and me both boboss - count me in as another for the ring-ring tone...

personalized ringtones are about as cool and interesting as particularly 'wacky' ties.

Mon Oncle Ignatius

08:02 / 13.01.06

RE: personalised ringtones and hatred thereof: does that include selecting from the usually appalling selection of presets provided on most phones these days? Many of them are musical, just not very good.

Consider the default Nokia ringtone. Absolutely hideous, and as noted above, hard to hear without thinking of Triggerhappy TV for a large number of people, but not exactly personalised.

As for ring ring tones, I suggest these can actually be more intrusive for people in the immediate surroundings when they go off than a more pleasant, less braying melody.

The only answer, of course, is to do as Xoc does, and just use the vibrate function and no sound. Then again, it could be that ze is using a personalised version of John Cage's 4'33" as a ringtone.

I don't usually wear ties, by the way, wacky or otherwise.

08:20 / 13.01.06

Vibrate all the way baby. It's the greatest advance in phone technology in my opinion and hasn't yet been superseded. I have the sound on, but it's usually the vibration that alerts me so it doesn't really matter if mine sounds the same as everyone else's.

Tabitha Tickletooth

08:21 / 13.01.06

I have the theme from Candyman - it's creepy but not overly intrusive and I like the way it works with the increasing volume. Also, I was able to download it for free.

On this whole creating of own ringtones thing: when I got my iBook, a friend told me that you are able to take any song and create a ringtone out of a 10-15 second loop. I have not yet worked out how to do this, but what I have done is started hearing songs in 'sections' sometimes.

It strikes me that there is actually a skill involved in selecting a segment of music that works well in such a short burst, repeated, outside the context of the rest of the song. Some of the songs I really like, just don't work - whether it be the intros or a few bars lifted from elsewhere.

Oddly, I hear bits of songs that I don't like, but think would probably make good ringtones. I realise that this is probably a common phenomena for those who make or mix electronic music on a regular basis.

08:24 / 13.01.06

As for ring ring tones, I suggest these can actually be more intrusive for people in the immediate surroundings when they go off than a more pleasant, less braying melody.

Yeah, that’s kinda what I meant. A good *bring bring* is fine if it’s in the privacy of your own home, and you own the only phone there, but the whole point of a personalised ringtone is that you’re the only one who responds to it. Or even hears it, ideally - I think they can be as discreet as you want. Maybe it's not actually all about showing off.

Mon Oncle Ignatius

08:31 / 13.01.06

I have the sound on, but it's usually the vibration that alerts me so it doesn't really matter if mine sounds the same as everyone else's.

I often don't hear or feel the phone either way if I'm walking down a busy street and my phone is in a pocket - the motion of walking tends to cancel out the vibration, and the noise of the traffic get the ring, whatever kind it is.

09:29 / 13.01.06

S'true. Walking definitely loses you calls. But then I have a foolproof way of not missing any calls - make sure you don't get any. I have something of a phone phobia and through an ingenious combination of losing friends through obnoxiousness and training the remaining few to use text and email, my phone almost never rings now.

09:33 / 13.01.06

Mine is just one of the preset ringtones and I have never downloaded one. I wouldn't even know how to. My best friend's phone plays the theme tune of "Terry and June" when I ring him from my home phone. Is that some kind of subtle insult?

09:38 / 13.01.06

"The Gonk," that mall music from the original Dawn of the Dead. People in the office even whistle it from time to time. When I had my old phone that had "polyphonic" tunes I had to enter myself (being to cheap to buy ringtones), I used the theme from "Suspiria."

09:43 / 13.01.06

For me musical ringtones just ruin the original track, in similar vein to use of great tunes in crap adverts. But then I'm biased, I hate phone, all phones, and the way they pollute my aural and mental environment. I think maybe I'm a bit phobic, and am letting the bad outweigh the good. If I could possibly get away with it I would not have any kind of phone, not even a land line, and would conduct all communication through email, postcards and maybe even the odd telegram....

10:03 / 13.01.06

For the record, my phone has a quiet, unobstrusive, purring ring, oh, and I leave it on vibrate.

I am a considerate person. Those of you with musical ringtones are not. This is the truth/Fact of reality.

10:34 / 13.01.06

....so all musical ringtones are inconsiderate, because music can’t possibly be as quiet or unobtrusive as a non-musical, mechanical-type ringtone, yes?

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