The Perfect MP3 Ringtone

Now with the advent of phones that are able to use MP3 (or AMR or AAC or WMA, whatever floats your boat) ringtones, people are starting to get creative with their ringtones, letting their phones pelt out the latest beats whenever someone calls.

It's easier said than done. So often, the ringtones simply fall flat. A song that sounds great on radio ends up being totally inappropriate as a ringtone. Ringtones that simply don't capture one's attention, or even worse, start with a 1-minute piano intro so soft you hardly notice it.

Here are some tips to creating your dream ringtone:

1. Face it, your favourite song is more likely than not to be a bad ringtone
When I choose a new ringtone from my playlist, it's usual that out of 30 songs I screen through, only 1 meets my criteria for being a good ringtone.

The criteria:
a. extremely catchy and perky
b. reasonably fast - no Dido or Celine Dion here for sure
c. easily recognisable even in a noisy area
d. the song should start fast and loud; if not, at least part of the song (then you trim to that part)



2. Don't irritate the hell outta your friends. That's not too hard. Just don't use some over-used, corny song like that Chinese-language Mice Love Rice, badly-recorded songs where you can hardly hear anything sensible, vulgar songs like Super Furry Animals's The Man Don't Give A Fuck or some dated somg you'd catch your parents cha-chaing to. And no, not everyone shares your taste for Vivaldi's Four Seasons.



3. Don't be afraid to trim down the song file on your computer first. What I usually do is to use Audacity or Goldwave to cut out the intro to the song, so that the ringtone jumps straight into the verse or the chorus. It takes some practice and mouse dexterity, bit it's worth it.

A ringtone that starts right at the climax of a memorable song catches one's attention quicker than anything.

If you're more technically inclined, you can add subtle fade-ins and fade-outs at the beginning and the end to make the transition less abrupt. Even more technically inclined? Run it through the equaliser to remove some of the volume from beyond 8KHz to reduce distortion in the puny phone ringer.

Cut the file into a snappy clip of about 1 minute's length. Really, phones hardly ring longer than that so save your memory space in the phone for better stuff. 10 seconds for a message tone. Save it as a 64kbps file in mono, because with small phone ringers it makes no difference if you go higher.



4. "And don't wear it out!" Green Day - St. Jimmy

Change your ringtone periodically. You'll get sick of it otherwise. So will your friends!