Ringtone Producer

Researchers at a university in Germany have established that the human brain is wired to hear familiar sounds, such as your cell phone’s ringtone, much faster than it hears other sounds.

The study, which was conducted by researchers at the University of Leipzig, involved a group of volunteers who had their neural activity monitored. While electrodes were attached to their scalps, the group heard the recorded text message alert tones and ringtones of all the volunteers in the group, including their own.

The New Scientist reports that that there were three different trials. During the first trial, volunteers heard the tones while watching a muted, subtitled film. During the next trial, they were once again played all the tones. This time, there was no movie or subtitles to distract them and they had to push a button whenever they heard their own tone. For the third and final trial, the volunteers were asked to select a ringtone belonging to another volunteer.

The trials indicated that those areas in the brain that are linked to memory retrieval and hearing lit up whenever participants heard their own ringtone or the one they were assigned. But even though they also heard the assigned tone much faster than other ringtones, more neurons were active when hearing their own tones.

The researchers concluded that the human brain stores templates enabling it – and therefore us – to quickly identify and pick out familiar tones.

Of course, if you have also joined the rest of the world in downloading the vuvuzela ringtone mentioned in our previous column, neither you nor your brain’s neurons are going to have a moment’s rest.

However, if you want a unique and distinctive ringtone on your phone, there are many places offering you the opportunity to create and download a custom, easily recognisable tone.

One such place is Peternalove.com. The California-based company specialises in products that “help pet owners celebrate the love of their pets”.

The company has teamed up with an award-winning songwriter and producer Alice Leon to create special pet ringtones. It all began as a bit of fun when Alice used her iPod to record her dog Lucy’s bark. Alice then composed a special ringtone featuring Lucy barking along to a song. “I thought it would be cool and very funny to have my cell phone go off and hear her voice during the day,” Alice says. “My phone is ringing all the time and it really cracks people up and brings a smile to my face.”

Alice’s “barking ringtone” became such a hit that Peternalove.com now offers custom-made versions for sale exclusively via the site. If you want your own beloved Fido barking along to your ringtone, you simply go to the site, answer some specific questions about your pet’s personality, choose a pre-recorded musical style – such as jazz, classic rock, country, disco, or R&B – and add a recording of Fido barking. Alice then writes completely original lyrics based on the answers you gave about your pet’s personality, combines them with the chosen musical style and bark, and the finished ringtone is then sent directly to the customer’s cell phone.

As with any ringtone, this one also carries the risk of driving some people barking mad. But hey, this service is not just for the dogs. All the different pet species are welcome to lend their voices to a ringtone. If you can get your cat to meow into your computer’s mic, or record the horse whinnying… well, you get the idea!

At least your brain will instantly recognise your unique pet ringtone!

After cleverly (and successfully) employing technology during his US Presidential election campaign, it is probably rather apt that President Barack Obama ended up becoming part of it.

The new President had scarcely been sworn in before a Boston company began selling highlights from his inaugural address… as ringtones and multimedia greeting cards.

Skycore LLC, in conjunction with Ringmyname.com, have decided to cash in on the feverish Obamania sweeping the United States. So they created a website called ObamaRingers.com, where fans and supporters of the new Commander-in-Chief can pay $1.99 to have their phones chime such nuggets as “The time has come”, “Challenges we face” or “Pick ourselves up”.

We wonder if the President himself will purchase one for his BlackBerry? After all, the fight he had to conduct to keep that smart phone with him during his presidency was, since it posed such a security nightmare, almost more difficult to win than the election itself! But he succeeded, and BlackBerry One, as it has since been dubbed by the media, can continue to occupy the White House with him.

It is actually not so far-fetched to wonder if President Obama would purchase a ringtone for the ‘first phone’. According to a 2008 study conducted by Ipsos MediaCT, a marketing research company, approximately one-third of all mobile phone users download ringtones, and about 40% of users frequently change their ringtones.

The company’s research shows that ringtones are the most common type of mobile music content downloaded by users.

But, as a CNN report recently pointed out, customising a phone with multiple ringtones can be expensive. Depending on the cellular network or service plans, ringtones can cost anywhere from US $0.99 to $2.99. But apparently this technicality isn’t deterring cellphone users. Analysts at Screen Digest, a UK-based firm covering global media markets, predict that mobile music sales will double from $1.6 billion in 2008 to $3.2 billion in 2012.

However, for folks who find themselves to be a bit more cash-strapped than usual during this current global recession, there are plenty of free ways to get ringtones. One includes the ringtone creator application on Facebook (which is merely one of many ringtone applications on the social networking website). That particular application is a fun way for people to select snippets of audio and edit it to their liking.

Whether other people will like it when it ends up as a ringtone on the creator’s cellphone – well, that remains to be seen or heard, doesn’t it?