What is a ringtone?

Basically a ringtone is the sound your phone makes when you have an incoming call. They have become very popular due to the ability to chop or use songs (mp3, wav, etc.) as ringtones. Even now you can use ringtones as your answering ring with services like FunMobile, DADA Mobile, GlamTones or FlyCell.

Basically there are three types of ringtones: Monophonic, Polyphonic and Full Music. Monophonic Ringtones are simple tones being played one at a time. These were the first form of ringtones that were popular on early cellphones. But as the cellphones matured so did the ringtones, giving us polyphonic ringtones.

Polyphonic ringtones are like monophonic ringtones in that they can only play tones of a song. The difference that with Polyphonic tones you can play more than one tone at once. Meaning you could different tone sounds for different instruments and play those simultaneously. In fact with most phones you can play up to 40 tones at once, making a very good simulation of a song. But it is not the actual song and therefore the next generation of ringtones is Full Music ringtones.

Full Music ringtones are the actual song. These can be in mp3, wav and other music formats. In the last couple of years cellphones have matured to have music players on the phones allowing full music playback. These “mp3 ringtones” are becoming more and more common as more and more phones can handle full mp3 playback.