Best sound to use for ringtone

Question

So I have never liked using ringtones. However my new phone has a weak vibration, so it seems I need to get one.

I want a ringtone that is able to be distinguishable from a whole crowd of noises, yet at the same volume, in somewhere it is quiet, I don't want the ringtone to sound super loud and obnoxious.

For example, when I'm in my car with the music blaring super loud, I still want to be able to hear it. And afterwards when I am at school and it is super quiet, and my phones ringer is still on, I don't want some super loud ringtone to bring a bunch of attention to me.

I'm realize what I am asking for is probably impossible, but what ringtone would be the closest to this.

Maybe the ringtone would include different colors of noise signals (White Noise, Pink Noise etc.)

Or maybe it would include sine waves

Maybe its beeping, or is a solid tone.

I hope this makes sense.

Answer 1

I used to have a tone sweep from one of the convolution plug ins as my ring tone. It worked really well because it was a chirp, followed by a few seconds of silence, and then a tone sweep low to high. The chirp and pause gave me time to answer it if i was in a room, and the tone sweep cut through when i was in noisy locations. The only caveat is that the tone sweep is very annoying if it gets that far without you answering it.

I can't remember where i got the file from, but you could make one yourself with the tools on this website, and a DAE.

EDIT: I found it! On the Audio Ease Altiverb site. Here's a download link for the sweep.

Answer 2

Yes, what you ask for is impossible, it's like wanting to take a swim but not wanting to get wet I'd say. You can get one, but not the other.

If you wanna blast away in the car or being in a dense crowd and still hear the phone, there is always the option to fire away a square-tone at full blast in the vicinity around 1 to 3 KHz. But at least in the crowd there's a good chance the ones around you will hate you. Immensely. That's where the human hearing peaks, and also the range infants like to scram in. You can tweak the tone to just barely break through the music and/or crowd, but playing at school...I'm not joking when I say this: Make sure that noone around you have issues with aggression, because this WILL piss people off to a degree you can not imagine. It's EXTREMELY painful to hear at the level we're talking here for some people, especially people with between mild to and heavier hyperacusis, and really really annoying for most other.

At school, on the other hand, there are neither no need nor desire for breaking through anything, so here we need a very different approach. Here, pink noise is technically speaking a very good choice, but it can also be a wee bit too anonymous if you're unlucky. The keyword here is having an as flat and wide a range as possible, and if you make a ringtone from a song, it's not a bad idea to lower the rage between 1-3 KHz somewhat to make it less distracting. Most phones don't go below like 250-300Hz, but lower frequencies are good for keeping thing softer, so raising the lower end is also a good idea. It might get a bit muddier as you can't reach the really good stuff, but it will also be less distracting. Just don't overdo it.

My sincere advice to you regarding this is: Go with the soft option, and buy an external more powerful vibrator instead. There's a wide selection I've seen over the years, and one of the easiest ones I've seen so far was a wireless one that just plain reacted to closely nearby signals. I had mine around the neck. I've also seen several that can be connected directly to the phone and are run by battery.

Answer 3

The tone I've used for years has been a tune that started with a rhythmic high-hat... instantly recognizable once it's locked into your head. With four bars before the melody comes it, it's enough time to mute or answer while the tone is still pretty quiet and unobtrusive. Then another four bars with a mild melody, before finally a bit of lyrics.

Has the effect of a slow increase in volume without actually doing so.

Check it out... you'll recognize the song. I think I got it started where my tone starts. Frankly, it's been so long since I've listened to the song on actual speakers, I hear some low end in the clip below that I haven't heard in years.