Plain, Simple and Free
“Nothing so liberalizes a man and expands the kindly instincts that nature put in him as travel and contact with many kinds of people.” Mark Twain
As of late, I’ve become a bit of a smart phone “junkie.” Apparently it’s never far from my side… And whenever I get an E-mail, text message, or MSN IM invite “ping” through, I pounce on it with blatant disregard for whatever I was doing, and subsequently get “locked” into a protracted, orgiastic flow of creative multi-media communicability. Well… At least that’s what I’m told!? Told by a friend who’s a devout technophobe i.e. he “still” rings me up on his 1960s rotary dial telephone to ask me how to set his VCR to auto-record a program that he wanted to watch on television later, but now can’t, as he’ll be out and about doing the soical… Perhaps the next time one of these communicability frenzies arises, I should become more mindful of it!?
Putting that somewhat freaky picture of social addiction to one side… I’ve got to be honest and say that I am thoroughly enjoying my smart phone for the pretty amazing little tool that it is. For me it’s the “Swiss army pen knife” of social and media interaction… One that seamlessly blends the day-to-day running of my business with the more informal social pursuits of my spare time. It’s a tool that is so handy it keeps nearly every aspect of my life “flowing” beautifully. No more personal organizers, mobile phones, cameras, dictaphones, Sat Navs and all the chargers that come with these devices… Nor anymore little scraps of paper with various E-mails, telephone numbers, names, titles of books, etc… scrawled in barely legible handwriting (with implements that range from empty BiC biros to freshly lit match sticks), littered throughout my pockets and back-packs… Now it’s all kept in just one little slim line device… Which has just one charger. I like to think of it as the palm grease for my informational groove (and ironically, just as I began to tap out this sentence, Herbie Hancock’s funky-cut entitled “Palm Grease” begins to play on the media player)… And I thank Zen for this new found simplicity! At the best of times I’m a minimalist i.e. I even sometimes begrudge having to take my laptop into the field with me. So to have a device that razors away all the old clutter of my “information-driven-life” is like having a close-shave and hot towel down at the barbers each and every day. It fits snugly over the non-linear dynamical discharge that occurs between the synaptic clefts of my brain’s complex neural network, providing my mind with joyous notions about the ethos behind a simplistic life.
Despite the condensed functionality and simplicity that this device has brought through its great design… I’ve had readjust my body and mind to a sort of 24 hour state of open communications… And, as a result, I have noticed that I’m getting a lot more work coming in. It seems the 8 hour working days, along with my geographical location, no longer dictate the way in which I deal with my clients… Even if I’m out on a recording job in the Scottish highlands (as I was just recently), when I switch my device on, I’m suddenly only a stone’s throw away from any clientele communication. When you deal with information, it’s handy to be able to access it anywhere, anytime and disseminate what you need to to your clients. With with this smart phone, I can now upload any client’s work to a public shared folder on my local “Cloud” and access/edit/amend any data that I need to. Everything is integrated into this ergonomic palm held device.
Which smart phone did I go for? Well… As 3 out of the 4 computers here at work are Apple Macs, and my laptop is a MacBookPro, I naturally chose the iPhone over a Blackberry or a Google Nexus type smart phone, mainly for ease of integration… And I’ve got to say, I haven’t really regretted my choice at all thus far.
But as far as my lifestyle has become more productive, I have become very aware of how sensitive my response to this new technological gimmick has become. And, with regards to this, I do have one important gripe with the iPhone… That is the totally lame collection of ringtones that it comes with. In fact… Just the other day, while I was waiting in a bus terminal’s departure lounge, I noticed how near-on twenty fellow iPhone owners were all using the same ringtone as myself on their iPhones!?! Needless to say that, while I was doing my best to catch up on some shut-eye after the long night out before, I ’subjectively’ heard ‘my’ phone go off with such a regular frequency that I barely had time to lie back down and close my eyes again before I was jolted back into consciousness by someone else’s incoming message or phone call! What a pain it is to be disturbed by a ringtone that isn’t even your own!!!
So as to avoid this torment, I searched high-and-low for an original ringtone that I could use… And I hate to say that I have come across NONE that suit my needs!? What with Apple solely using their own unique .m4r files for iPhone ringtones (which is based on their own .m4a compression system using the Apple Lossless Encoder), rather than the ubiquitous and trusty .mp3 format, customization/personalization is made all the more difficult for any iPhone user. No doubt you can buy someone else’s ringtone packages via the iTunes store, as I have done. But, be warned, you will probably find a bourgeois amalgam of sounds that range from crying babies, horns hooting, cars screeching, airplanes flying overhead, all the way through to bubbles popping, twigs snapping, people cheering, thunder storms booming, keys-a-jangling, etc… None of which resemble a telephone in the slightest… But all of which become either highly annoying after the first two or three rings (someone almost got lynched the other day in a cafe up North for their phone’s offensive ringtone) OR they become easily inaudible over certain types of everyday ambient noise i.e. while driving in a car OR down the local watering hole!!!
Thus I began to ponder about the sonic aesthetics of the “ringtone.” And I came to the conclusion that… A telephone should sound like a telephone… Not like my dog barking, nor my favorite tune of the week playing, or any other cluttered idea that seemingly provides me with some delusional personalized “depth” to my own individuality. For me, a ringtone should be nothing more than a ringtone i.e. it should alert me to the fact that someone is trying to “ring-through” in order to talk to me. Thus it should be easily recognizable as a telephone… And, within limits, you should be able to recognize your own telephone’s ringtone, so you know that it is your telephone which is in fact ringing, and not someone else’s… It should also be able to cut through all but the highest of ambient noises, remaining simple, elegant and unconceited in the process. Why should you have to pollute the environment with more banal ambient noises that might only serve to annoy and/or irritate others? Silence is rarely found in today’s culture… And thus, for me, silence is golden… When it needs to be “broken,” it should be done so with delicate, specific and mindful intent.
Bearing in mind these criteria, over the last few days I have strung together a collection of “no-frill” ringtones for any iPhone user among you who might share similar sentiments to my own. These ringtones are based on sounds that I have recorded live in the field and then re-synthesized in the studio. In the process I have pillaged, pilfered and studied many ringing devices, both old and new alike. And on the whole, I was irrevocably drawn back to the simplicity and commonality of the alarms found on antique machinery that our fore-fathers might have known. These machines ranged from rotary dial telephones and old mechanical calculators, through to old Singer antique sewing machines, typewriters, and Victoria copying devices, all of which I easily managed to acquire through FreeCycle, or found at local Car Boot Sales. For me, nothing quite beats that fervent “ring-ring” pattern of metal striker upon metal bell, providing the true essence of what all modern alarm ideals are based upon i.e. the alert that bids one to pay attention to whatever it is that needs attention paid to it.
A Singer Model 12 antique sewing machine that was used as a sound source for some of the ringtones below.
Much fun was had compiling these sounds, and along the way I met many an interesting person who made me very aware of just how far mankind has come technologically i.e. by exchanging most of the manual aspects of the classic, antique “machinery” design for the “lazy” electronic dependence of power grid modernity. While these “tocsins” certainly aren’t anything flamboyant, they are simple, understated, elegant and timeless… Centred around the essence of this common, yet classic, antiquarian alarm design, the idea has been modestly evolved into several novel electronic derivations, so as to provide one with a comprehensive selection of ringtones from which to be alerted by. But, probably more importantly, you’ll be able to hear these ringtones over much of the “usual” everyday ambient noise… And do so without annoying too many people in the process and/or getting confused about whether that is in fact your phone, which is ringing, or someone else’s…
Oh… And did I mention they are free too!?
Please Note: These are provided in the .m4a file format, which will not work on the iPhone directly as a ringtone! So… In order to change them into iPhone ringtones, once you’ve downloaded the files you’ll need to convert them into the .m4r format. This is simply done by changing the “.m4a” suffix to “.m4r” i.e. change the “a” to an “r” just as you would when changing a file-name on your computer. It’s really that easy… Then all you have to do is open them in iTunes. Once in iTunes, you can then sync your iPhone and, providing you have selected the right settings, the ringtones should automatically be uploaded to your device ready for use.
If you have any comments about any of the above ringtones, OR if you have any personalized requests, please feel free to leave a note below, and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.
OR… If you are using an Apple Mac computer, you can try creating your own ringtone by using the “iPhone Ringtone Maker” application.
