Ring Tones
These ring tones are all in mp3 format. Whether your phone can play them depends on the phone model.
Also, you might need to do some maneuvring to get the things on your phone in such a way that they are selectable as a ring tone.
Two possible options there:
- bitpim allows synchronization of Phone Book, Calendar, WallPapers and RingTones and manipulating the embedded filesystem in CDMA cell phones. Most phones you can connect to with USB can probably be sent ring tones with bitpim.
- rumkin.com lets you send a file to their server and then download it to your phone.
You can make your own ringtones using freely available software on linux (which I use) or Windows. The steps are:
- Get the sound you want as a file, preferably a WAV file. If it's a TV show, you may need to look online for the show or capture it yourself, and then strip out the audio stream. I use mplayer to do the stripping, and it's available for Windows though I haven't tried any of the Windows ports.
- Open the sound file in an audio editor. I use audacity which exists for Windows, Mac and Linux. You have to find the little snippet that you want to sample out of the larger file, select its start and end points, and export the selection in the format your phone requires. To export in MP3 format, you will need to install other packages in order to get the LAME encoder dependency (and no, I'm not saying it's lame, that's the name of it). Don't forget to normalize the sample at 0 dB before exporting it so that it plays as loudly as possible on your phone; at least, 0 dB works for my phone. I suspect some phones will distort the playback if you don't normalize down to, say, -3 dB or something.
At this point, you'll have an MP3 you created yourself, and all you have to do is get it onto your phone and tell the phone to use it as your ring tone.
I believe making these files available for download is "fair use" because they're short little snippets of things rather than copies of entire works. They're put here for people to learn how to create and manage ring tone content on their mobile phones. If you have an ownership interest in any of the source and you don't want the item on here, just drop me a line to that effect. I'm hoping, though, you find it an honour to be mentioned!
-- Funny --
These came from TV shows or YouTube posts that were amusing to me.
This would be great for anyone whose name is Gerald.
This might send the wrong message to people who overhear your phone ring, but conceptually it would make a great ring tone. It always makes me snicker.
Again, this might raise some eyebrows but it makes me laugh. Imagine that Mr. Ed starts to get very, very fond of his leather saddle and takes an intense interest in Tom of Finland.
This is a quote from a vlogger on YouTube: "If you can't keep it in your pants, keep it in the family." -- Davey Wavey.
While I admire Davey's candor, I'm not sure the Menendez brothers would concur that incest really is best. I haven't even tried it and I'm pretty dang sure I wouldn't like it. But it's a quote that rolls off the tongue so lightly, yet offends so deeply. Gotta love that.
-- Pretty --
This is a little snippet from Carl Orff's opera Antigonae. It's both ring-like and kind of nice.
This is the same, but just restricted to the ringy part at the beginning.
I love Javanese Gamelan, so I'm using this one as my main ring tone at present.
This is from the introduction of Olivier Messaien's Turangalila symphony. It's too twisted for colour TV so I had to get a ring tone out of it.
This is from Stravinsky's Petrouchka. It's when the blackamoor and the princess dance together, and it's kind of cool to hear two different songs played on top of each other in a way that almost makes sense but is rhythmically confusing. It's too quiet though.
This would work well as a ring tone, it's from De Temporum Fine Comoedia but it's not frightening.
-- Scary --
A lot of these are from one thing or another by Carl Orff. Only one is from the Carmina Burana and it's not from O Fortuna. Carl Orff is kind of like Don McLean in the sense that he wrote one thing that everyone likes and knows, and about 100 other things that are also good but are obscure by comparison. Yeah, O Fortuna is Carl Orff's American Pie.
Is it just me, or is that kind of sad?
This bunch are all from a charming little opera, set at the end of time (just before Jesus comes back and does the whole 1000 year thing on earth). So it's full of opera singers (not a bunch known for subtlety at the best of times) acting terrified, as though the world's on the brink of ending. It's called De Temporum Fine Comoedia (the play of the end of time), and I don't know for the life of me why nobody put it on for New Years Eve, 2000. That would have been perfect! Though maybe it would have been a bit too close to the bone just then.
These might make great custom ring tones for your boss, ex-wife, favourite client or mother-in-law.
The women are scared.
They're still pretty freaked.
They're right flipping out now!
They sound like they're stabbing somebody in the shower here.
The men get in on the freakout.
Similar, but more dissonant.
They sound like they're freaking out on an amusement park ride.
Think: duel music for Darth Vader vs. Luke Skywalker, except by Carl Orff.
Similar to above except more dissonant.
Similar to above except even more dissonant.
This isn't scary, it's actually hopeful. It's a guy saying, "Omnium rerum finis erit vitiorum abolitio." The end of all things means the oblivion of all guilt. Maybe it's a thought that's like a bowl of creepy with a cherry on top.
Here is Satan apologizing to God for being naughty. "Pater, peccavi."
A guy asking when time is going to end. Kind of a Zen-like question isn't it?
Another much more freaked out guy asking the same question.
These are from Carl Orff still but not from De Temporum Fine Comoedia.
This is from Carmina Burana, "Ego Sum Abbas."
This is from Oedipus der Tyrann. The only bit from it that seemed ring-tone snippetable.
This is from the same bit of Oedipus der Tyrann, only the end bit, where it speeds up and thereby creates tension.
-- Goofy --
This is the greeting that some visitors to an all-robot planet get when it's revealed that they aren't robots. It's kind of got that cylon appeal (the old ones, not the new ones).
This is just silly -- mouth harp going boi-oi-oing.
This is lower pitched silliness.