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Polyphonic ring tonesThe Nokia 3510 (2002) was the first polyphonic cell phone in the world. Polyphonic ring tones also called MIDI ring tones were introdused in 2002. Back then not many cell phones supported the use of polyphonic ring tones. Nowadays most new phones can play polyphonic ring tones.Polyphonic ring tones are just like a regular ring tones (read mono ring tones), but they sound more like music. With polyphonic ring tones you can play several notes at the same time, allowing for harmonized tunes. It is the Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) that enables the creation of polyphonic musical compositions with differnet sounds. Polyphonic means that multiple tones can be played at the same time using instrument sounds such as drums, guitar, electronic piano, etc. The first Nokia phone to use polyphonic tones was the Nokia 3510. In the second quarter of 2002, Nokia also announced its 3585, 3590 and Nokia 7210 cell phone models which all support SP-MIDI for ring tones and java game sounds. Most new Motorola, Siemens, Sony Ericsson,Samsung, Panasonic and Nokia phones supports polyphonic ring tones. Polyphonic ring tones can be used as ring tones, message alert tones and as sound effects in cell phone games. Polyphonic ring tone formatsThere are some different types of polyphonic ring tones.Polyphonic ring tone level 16 Polyphonic ring tone level 4 The polyphonic level 4 capable phones can play playback 4 simultaneous notes. The instrument bank of the above mentioned Nokia phones include 29 melodic and 14 percussive instruments. Polyphonic ring tone level 24 The old Nokia 3650, 6600, 7650, 3300 and Nokia 6650 had support for polyphony level 24 MIDI content. The instrument bank of the above mentioned Nokia phones include 128 melodic and 47 percussive instruments. To get even better polyphonic ring tone sounds some cell phones have a built in synthesizers. How to download a polyphonic ring tone? A polyphonic ring tone is downloaded to the mobile phone over MMS or WAP unlike a traditional monophonic ring tone which is downloaded to the phone as a SMS message. Polyphonic tones cannot be sent to other mobile phones. In Europe and the UK you are usually charged for your polyphonic tones download via your mobile phone bill. In US a polyphonic ring tone is usually paid with a credit card and some ring tone web sites also accept payment by Pay Pal. The payments options depends on the service, operator and plan you use. Cingular Wireless, Nextel, Sprint, T-Mobile and AT&T are the biggest operators in the US. The biggest operators in Europe and UK are O2 / BT Cellnet, T-Mobile / One2One, Virgin Orange, and Vodafone. |
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