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March 2006
Custom ringtones the wave file of the future
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Making “stealth” ringtones and planting them in the phones of your friends has never been easier.
Imagine my girlfriend’s surprise when I called and she heard my melodious baritone screaming “Answer the BLEEP phone woman!”
She still dates me strangely enough. The allure of Geekdom is strong.
Editing sound files to create a ringtone is not difficult. All you need is a computer, free software and the willingness to learn. A microphone would be needed to record any screaming, of course.
I am sure many Geekboy readers do not need any help, but for those of you scared by the thought of making your own ringtone, I humbly offer the following guide, which has worked on the three Sprint phones I have access to.
I can make a ringtone in less than a minute easily, and so can you.
First, download Wavepad. Be sure to get the free version.
We can either edit an existing sound or make our own. Since I don’t want a gaggle of lawyers writing the newspaper, we will create our own.
Wavepad has text-to-speech capability that will allow for all kinds of zaniness. But first we have to download and install two super-small files available here.
Once those are downloaded, install them. You may get a message that says certain files already exist. If so, click “No to all.”
OK, now let’s get cracking on making a ringtone that says “Your oppressor is calling” whenever the bossman decides to disturb your 2-hour lunch.
In Wavepad, go to the TOOLS menu and click TEXT TO SPEECH. A little box will pop up asking for a sample rate and whether the file should be stereo or mono. The default setting, mono at 44,100 kilohertz, is fine, so just click OK.
Now simply type “Your oppressor is calling” in the next box that appears and in the dropdown box select one of the “robot” voices. I am using RoboSoft2.
To personalize it, you can use your name, so mine would say “Geekboy, your oppressor is calling.”
Once you click “Synthesize Voice” a wave will appear and play the cool robot voice. Try some other voices and pick the one you like best.
Now, if using RoboSoft2 voice, if you look at the lower right corner of the program window, we can see we are left with a waveform that is about 1.7 seconds long. This is not long enough, we need a file just under 30 seconds in length because that is how long a cellphone rings before voicemail typically activates.
We are going to create a loop, meaning we will repeat the waveform over and over until we reach 30 seconds.
It sounds pretty stupid to have the voice not “pause” so we are going to insert 1.2 seconds of silence between each “ring.” Why 1.2 seconds? Because that will make the loopable part 2.9 seconds long, which, if we loop 10 total times will give us almost the perfect length.
To insert 1.2 seconds of silence, go to EDIT on the menu, the select INSERT SILENCE at the END of the file. A little box will appear, so punch in 1200, which is 1.2 seconds in milliseconds.
If at any point the file starts playing and you want to stop it, simply click the button at the STOP bottom of the program window. It is the button with the square on it. You can also hit rewind and fast forward if need be.
Once the silence is added, SELECT ALL (hit the control key and “a” key at the same time).
Now to create the loop, go to EDIT and REPEAT LOOP and tell it to repeat the waveform 9 times. Once you do, you will see the waveform is now 29-plus seconds long. Perfect!
Now SELECT ALL again so all 29+ seconds are highlighted.
If you are using music or anything else with a lot of bass, you will want to get rid of the lowest tones because they can destroy the tiny speaker in your cellphone. The digitized voice does not really have the kind of bass that destroys speakers, so I am including this step only for those using a snippet of a song with a lot of thump.
To get rid of bass, go to EFFECTS and select HIGH PASS FILTER, which allows highs (treble) to pass through, but kills lows (the bass). A little box will appear – change the 250 to something more reasonable like 160 or even 120.
Once you have done this the file will play and you can hear the difference.
Now we want to make the file loud enough, but not too loud. This is called “normalizing.” Once again, this step is not necessary with the voice synthesizer, but I am including it in case you are importing music or some other sound file into Wavepad.
SELECT ALL again then go to EFFECTS and select NORMALIZE. When the box appears, change the 100 to 90. If you find that is too loud when you begin using the ringtone, try it at 80.
We are done!
To save the ringtone go to FILE and select SAVE FILE AS.
Give the file a name, something short, like “rt_boss.”
In the first popup, you should save the file as a WAVE, which should be the default..
Once you click OK a second window pops up, the top dropbox should say PCM, which is the default, but the second dropbox should be changed to 8 kHz, 16-bit mono. Make sure you change this you will not be able to convert the file to something your phone can use as a ringtone.
And that’s it. Once you walk through the steps a few times you will be able to make robot voice ringtones in about 30 seconds. The more enterprising among you may even want to make the voice say the name of the person calling and associate that ringtone with their phone number.
To use the ringtone, you will need to follow the instructions in Step 3 and Step 4 of the original ringtone article.
Good luck!
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My Ring-a-ling
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Everyone has a cellphone and everyone has an annoying ringtone and wants more.
If you want to contribute more of your hard-earned funds to Sprint, Verizon or whoever’s got your business, you can download endless annoying ringtones for a small fee.
Geekboy downloaded one from Sprint, the pleasing sound of crickets chirping. It is unique enough that I can detect its plaintive wail across a busy newsroom packed with reporters and editors watching Boston College barely escape Pacific in the NCAA tournament.
But paying for ringtones can get expensive, especially if you are like some of my friends who like to have a different ringtone for everyone on their speed dial.
If you like paying for ringtones, stop reading now.
If you want to experiment a bit with creating your own ringtones for free, keep reading. Be warned that the techniques we will be using to stuff your phone full of annoying new sounds may melt something, but I have uploaded a few dozen on several different Sprint phones and have yet to experience a problem. This may not work on non-Sprint cellphones. And of course, your phone has to be able to receive messages. Almost all phones are “web-enabled” now, so this should not pose much of a hurdle.
DISCLAIMER: If your phone quits working, it is your fault, not Geekboy’s.
If you know how to edit sound files on your computer, you are way ahead of the game. If you don’t, I will be writing a basic primer next Monday.
For the more adventurous type, let’s delve ahead.
Step One: Obtain a sound file
It is easy to find sound files. Search the web or obtain an MP3 of your favorite tune. You probably want something that doesn’t have vocals or a lot of bass in it. Cellphone speakers are not designed to pump out a lot of bass, and forcing them to will turn them into dust.
Step Two: Obtain sound editing software
For Windows, there are a lot of free sound editing programs out there. If you know of a free Apple sound editor let me know so I can post a link here.
For Windows, we will be using Wavepad. It is a great piece of software and the non-pro version is not only free, but devoid of ads and spyware.
Once you fire up Wavepad, go to FILE and open the sound file obtained in Step One.
You should see the entire sound file loaded — the wavy green blob is a visual representation of what you hear. We want to make the sound file 29 seconds long, since that is the length of time before most voice mail kicks in. I will be telling you how to do this step by step next week, but the more astute among you can probably wing it.
After you have trimmed the file to 29 seconds, you need to run it through a high-pass filter, which allows only treble to pass through, thus removing much of the bass. As mentioned earlier, a thumping soundtrack will destroy your cellphone speaker.
Select the entire wave and go to EFFECTS and choose HIGH PASS filter. A box will show up with a number in it. Change this number to 160 and press OK. Much of the bass has been removed.
Next, we want to make the sound file loud enough to be heard, but not loud enough to pulverize the cellphone speaker.
Select the entire wave again and go to EFFECTS and choose NORMALIZE and punch in 80. Click OK and this will either reduce or increase the overall volume.
We are done editing the ringtone, so let’s save it.
Go to FILE and then SAVE AS. You want to save it as a WAV file at 8khz 16-bit mono. Make sure this is done correctly or the next step will not work.
You want to name the file something short with no spaces, I named mine “rt_tmbg.wav” because my ringtone is the the first few seconds of “Don’t Lets Start” by They Might Be Giants. I used the first few seconds and created a 29-second loop, which I will show you how to do Monday.
Step Three: Convert to ringtone format
Sprint ringtones are saved in a proprietary format with a “qcp” extension. You can think of a qcp as being a variant of an MP3.
To convert your ringtone you need another free piece of software, PVConverter.
Once you install PVConverter, open the folder you installed it to in Windows Explorer. Now, take the sound file you want to convert and drag it over the “PVConv.exe” icon, and it will automatically create the qcp file.
If the program itself pops up, simple choose “SAVE AS” and you should see the new qcp file show up in the folder.
Step Four: Upload the ringtone to your phone
This part is easy thanks to fellow geek Tyler Akins of Minnesota, who created an upload site. He created the site after his wife got a cellphone and wanted more ringtones. She, of course, has never used it, but you can! The site can be used to upload ringtones, images, games, and screensavers, but I have only fiddled with ringtones. Tyler assures me everything works though.
GEEKSPEAK: A true geek can create something magical with nothing, and for a time, Tyler was running the site on a 90mhz server stashed under his mother-in-law’s stairwell. The server was running Debian linux, Apache and PHP. He’s recently upgraded to a 500mhz machine, but is still pirating his mother-in-law’s DSL line. Good job Tyler!
Tyler’s site is pretty self-explanatory. Just put your phone number in the “SEND TO” field and fill in the other blanks. Click “browse” to find the qcp file you created and then click UPLOAD.
Wait a few seconds and your phone should sound an alarm indicating you have received a message.
The phone will warn you that the message is not “trusted” but feel free to ignore that.
What messages you see next will depend on your phone, but you should be able to figure out how to use the sound file as a ringtone. You are a Geekboy reader after all.
Next week: How to use Wavepad to create the perfect ringtone!
A Pandora’s box full of file sharing
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Limewire? Gnutella? BitTorrent? Azureus? Kazaa? eMule?
If you are a parent and listen closely, you will likely hear your teen child mention them. Don’t worry, they are not drugs, but they are just as addictive, and likely are being used illegally in your home.
What are they?
They are computer programs used to “share” digital files, music primarily, between two computers connected via the World Wide Web. This is called peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing and almost everyone who uses P2P does so to illegally download music, movies, TV shows, games, software.
If anyone was making money off P2P, it would be big business. I have seen some estimates that claim 50 percent of all Internet traffic can be attributed to P2P file sharing. That’s a lot of sharing/stealing.
How does it work?
Napster was the first famous P2P client. It was a small program that, once you fired it up, made your home computer capable of communicating with a powerful computer (called a server) on the Internet that kept track of what files everyone was sharing. For example, if I hooked up to Napster and had a Beatles song in my sharing folder, the server would tell anyone searching for that Beatles song that I had it. With a simple click, the file could be copied over the Internet.
This is, of course, illegal. After an Icarus-like existence, Napster was shut down by the courts.
As other were quick to notice, the central database for song titles was what legally doomed Napster.
With an estimated 100 million Napster users experiencing MP3 withdrawal and the dreaded malady known as “twitchy mouse finger,�? it didn’t take long for new P2P clients to emerge.
The new clients were different. Instead of employing one centralized server, every client was now capable of figuring out (called indexing) what files were available on the network. Unlike Napster, this de-centralized network cannot be shut down by turning off one corporate-owned server. Now, the clients themselves maintain the network and are installed in millions of homes.
Good luck getting the courts to shut that down.
There are different file-sharing protocols, which are simply the different rules computers use to exchange information. The most famous protocol is Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP), which explains why web site addresses always start with “http.”
To view this web page, your computer requested http information from a web server. Since they both used the same protocol, the information was quickly transferred.
The first file-sharing protocol to get a lot of ink after Napster was Gnutella, which was named after the exotic hoofed animal, the Gnu “free software” Project, and the famous hazelnut spread programmers have been known to live on.
Limewire is probably the best Gnutella client. It works well with small files. The weakness of the Gnutella protocol is that large files cannot be shared until they are completely downloaded. So, if you have downloaded half a song, no one can download the bits you have until your download is complete.
So BitTorrent came along. BitTorrent chops each file into hundreds or thousands of smaller packages. If you have downloaded half a movie, others can download the bits you have while you are still in the process of getting the complete file. This makes the network a lot more efficient because no one has to wait for one download to finish before another can begin.
Azureus is a good BitTorrent client.
BitTorrent clients are unusual in that they are not standalone applications, they require information from an external source to know where the sought after download is on the Internet. If you want to download a TV show, for example, you have to first find it via a BitTorrent search engine, typically a web site like IsoHunt.com, ThePirateBay.com, TorrentSpy.com, all of which seem to be funded by porn site advertisements.
This is officially the “dark side” of the Internet, not for the easily offended. In a plot twist of the morality play that is modern America, I have heard parents complain they were more upset their child was exposed to nudity than they were with their children for downloading music illegally.
BitTorrent search engines come and go as fast as the lawyers can file lawsuits, which, I can assure you, is not nearly as fast as a new website can be created. The lawyers are fighting a losing battle.
What’s my take on “sharing?”
I know it is wrong, but I think most people are going to keep doing it. I think people are going to keep doing it in such large numbers that it will eventually cause a dramatic shift in the way companies do business.
The distribution and profit model of the recording industry is tied to an antiquated system. Filing lawsuits is expensive and slow, the Internet is cheap and fast.
Times have changed and so must the industry giants. If not, even they will be felled by the millions of Gnutella-slinging Davids.
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