I can hear it now, that gentle, pulsating melody coming from your pocket or purse. It's your telephone. It's ringing. Pick it up. PLEASE!

Unfortunately, we have become immersed in a world of ringtone phanatics who feel they have to let everyone on the train, bus, subway, theater or office know they have a phone call by turning up the volume on their digital devices so we can all hear Beethoven's 5th Symphony blaring from their pockets.

Now, they have even more ammunition: They can create and download new ringtones free --- no fees, no three-month usage.

Ringtone Maker ($19.95) from Magix Software, Ringtone Studio ($19.95) from Avanquest USA, and Pyro5 ($39.95) from Cakewalk all allow you to create ringtones from CDs, MP3s and any other digital tracks and download them to your digital phone.

But, as your mom used to say, read the box before you buy.

Two of these products require you to have a Bluetooth wireless connection or the ability to connect your phone to your computer, and the other prefers that your phone be WAP enabled so you can download your new tones via the Internet.

Magix Ringtone Maker

Ringtone Maker requires an infrared, Bluetooth or USB connection and a "real music" mobile phone. This means those with phones that only make bleeps and bloops need not apply.

Other features include:

• A 4-track mixer for editing your music.
• The ability to create your own sounds using music loops.
• You can hear your ringtone before you upload it.
• It comes with a library of 50 sounds and 500 music loops.
• You can record your voice or other sounds as ringtones.
• You can import music from CDs, MP3s, OGG Vorbis, WAV or WMA formats.
• Existing ringtones can be converted to MP3, WAV, AMR or SMAF formats.

Avanquest Ringtone Studio

Ringtone Studio, which has the same requirements as Ringtone Maker, includes a few additional features:

• It comes with a library of 5,000 ringtones, photos and videos.
• You can edit and create ringtones from midi or other polyphonic files, which means you can use older phones.
• You can crop, edit and then download photos and short videos to your phone.
• You can add text and sound to your videos.
• Photos can be automatically scaled to fit your phone's screen.

Cakewalk Pyro5

Now we come to Pyro5, which uses ToneThis technology to send your digital masterpieces to your phone via the Internet. You simply hit "upload to phone," the phone rings asking you if you want to download data and, voila, you have a new ringtone. But there is a lot more to it than your average ringtone creator:

• You can record audio from any source: Internet broadcast, microphone, LPs, CDs, or any other digital media.
• You can download your files, including artists' names to any MP3 device.
• You can organize your music files on your PC.
• You can listen to music using Pyro's Dockable Miniplayer.
• Advanced editing tools allow you to create smooth transitions, control start and end times, split audio files, restore old recordings, enhance audio with special effects and control volume.

More information on these products can be found at www.magix.com, www.avanquestusa.com and www.cakewalk.com.

---

 

To comment on this article, contact me here.