Photo idccollage / CC BY-SA
First ringtones
It is believed that the first custom ringtones appeared in Japan in 1996. Then an updated version of the โclamshellโ Digital Mova N103 entered the market . There were several preset MIDI melodies in her memory, plus the device allowed creating custom compositions using tone dialing. The feature became so popular that a book with instructions on how to recreate popular songs sold 3.5 million copies in a year .
The trend for custom calls came to the West only in 1998, when the Finnish engineer Vesa-Matti Paananen, together with the Radiolinja telecom, launched a service for transmitting MIDI files to Nokia phones using text messages.
Goldmine
The first mobile phone ringtones were monophonic . To transfer them between devices, special languages โโwere used - at Nokia it was called RTTTL ( RingTone Text Transfer Language). But monophony was quickly replaced by polyphony, and then the so-called realtones - fragments of musical compositions in MP3 or AAC format. This trend has further spurred the development of the ringtone industry.
By 2002, 30% of all SMS forwarded in the world were ringtone download requests. Two more years later, the custom calling industry was valued at $ 4 billion.
In the West, the cost of one ringtone was about $ 2.5. The American company Zingy sold over 2.5 million custom incoming call ringtones every month. Cellular operators also made money on this - they took a percentage of each sale. The boom was also observed in Russia - ads with codes for downloading ringtones could be found on TV, in newspapers, teenage magazines and even on the back of school notebooks . One track cost about 0.75 USD .
Influence on musical culture
Custom calls started to affect music. Some artists - like Soulja Boy, T-Pain and J-Kwon - recorded the tracks with a ringtone version in mind. For labels, ringing tones have become a marketing tool, a way to promote an artist to the masses.
Photo wลodi / CC BY-SA
Perhaps one of the most popular and famous custom calls of the 2000s was the hit โ Crazy Frog โ, which was released by the Jamba label. The track was presented by the Bass Bumpers, who combined an audio recording of a Swedish teenager who mimics the sound of a moped with the track " Axel F " by Harold Faltermeier. The newly-minted composition became a hit - in the UK in six months it collectedten million pounds and surpassed Coldplay sales.
Death of the phenomenon
In 2007, the ringtone industry peaked and shrank 97% over the next ten years. Experts call online one of the reasons for such a colossal drop. People began to communicate on social networks and instant messengers, and calls faded into the background. In 2012, they ranked only fifth among the tasks for which they use phones.
In a sense, the arrival of the iPhone has influenced the decline in the ringtone industry. It provided access to the Internet, video and games, and customization of the device is no longer a priority for users. The HN resident also noted in the thematic thread that the standard iPhone melody - Marimba - could have played a role in the death of ringtones - many Apple users left it on the call.
Today, ringtones are just an artifact of a bygone era. But those who want to feel nostalgic can find curated selections of songs on streaming services that everyone was calling decades ago.
Additional reading in the "World of Hi-Fi":
Where to listen to the squeak of the ZX Spectrum, PC Iskra-1030 and the sounds of old household appliances
History of home audio: the golden era of Hi-Fi
What sounds have disappeared from our lives for a while, and whose return is not worth waiting for
Finds audiomania: where to listen to the music of bygone eras
History of speech synthesizers: the first mechanical installations