DIY Ringtones

No, no, it’s not a spam-post!

I’ve been playing of late with Audacity, an open-source sound editor, taking in an MP3 file, editing it, saving it back out as a new MP3. (or a .wav, or a .ogg- not that that’ll mean much to a lot of people) It’s a very cool bit of kit, and it came up as part of another project.

Anyway, I’ve been sodding about with Audacity, and ended up making some new mp3 ringtones for my phone. I’m really not into a lot of the current music when it comes to ringtones, but also I wanted something that’s non-standard, so messing about some music files for tracks that I love anyway? Well, it seemed to be a good plan.

So I’ve been playing. And now I’ve got some great ringtones – although my current favourite is a snippet from Depeche Mode’s “Personal Jesus”, which is just the line “Pick up the receiver, I’ll make you a believer”. It seemed pretty apt, and amused me. Whether it’ll stay in use for long, well, I don’t know.

And when I get bored? Well, there’s a couple of Sisters of Mercy edits, the intro to Yello’s “Oh yeah” which trimmed in beautifully, and three or four others that’ll be fun to use as well. Plus, well, I’ve now got the software, and about 60Gb of MP3s I could play with if I want. I’m not sure that’s a good thing…


3 Comments on “DIY Ringtones”

  1. Tom says:

    I was messing around with getting NIN’s “Help Me I Am In Hell” to work as a ringtone. Couldn’t use the song itself because the opening is too quiet. Then I decided I couldn’t be bothered.

  2. Matt says:

    Audacity is brilliant. I made ringtones for a few of my friends as well as myself, ages ago now. And I recorded all my podcasts with it too.

    But it seems like it doesn’t work so well on my new shiny Mac. Oh well, there’s always Garageband.

  3. Pete says:

    I make my own mp3 ringtones too. My current one is the first minute of “Birdhouse In Your Soul” (without the first few seconds).

    I usually apply a high pass filter at about 100 Hz – after all, those low frequencies are completely inaudible on a mobile phone.


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