The Definition of a Good Ringtone
Sunday, May 29, 2011 at 14:40
admin in Listening, News, iPhone, ringtones

It’s happened many times: I sit in a train, as all of a sudden a loud noise wakes up all the passengers. It’s a phone, as loud as can be. Thin, harsh music. Many faces turn to the source of the sound, watching it’s owner dig in his/her pocket to pick it up as soon as he/she can.

But it’s already too late. I don’t know the person, but now I know his/her love for German schlagers (and probably lots of beer and sausages, right?). Apart from the fact the sound annoys other people, what does it say about a person? What kind of prejudice does he/she leave?

This is a random example of a situation in which unwanted sound disturbs our living space, and there are many more. I cannot think of any good reason to use music as a ringtone anyway. It’s like wearing a button showing a tiny fragment of a painting by your favorite artist.

The music I like might not be the music you prefer (and I like to listen to a song from beginning to end, preferably on a quality sound system or headphones), and the sound of your three-year-old yelling might make you feel all warm inside, do you think it has the same effect on your colleagues? That being said, let’s look at the positive side of things. Is there such a thing as a good ringtone?

Properties of a good ringtone

It’s not hard to design a ringtone that has all those properties. Yet the stock iPhone ringtones tend to be completely unusable ‘funny’ ringtones like ‘Motorcycle’, ‘Old Car Horn’ or ‘Pinball’. As a sound designer, knowing Apples high standards for product design, I really have no clue why they don’t seem to pay any attention to these sounds and their functionality.

That’s why I created Cleartones, a set of fifty ringtones that will make our world sound a bit better and your friend and colleagues less annoyed. They all comply with the properties mentioned above. The set can be bought from the Cleartones website, but you can also try some of the ringtones before buying them by ‘paying’ with a tweet or a Facebook comment.

Joachim Baan of Anothersomething was kind enough to provide me with photo material that illustrates the way a ringtone should gently add a functional sound to the soundcape of our lives: A ripple in the sand of a curvy desert or sparks of sunlight reflecting in the water.

Article originally appeared on Sound Art, Sound Installations, Sonic Inspiration (http://www.everydaylistening.com/).
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