Explanation of the different types of ringtones

Understanding the difference between various types of ringtones will not only help you avoid the discomfort you’ll feel if the ringtone doesn’t play on your phone, but it will also save you cost and time spent on the process. Here are the three basic types of ringtones and the formats they come in:

Monophonic ringtones: ‘Mono’ means one. Rather a rudimentary type of ringtone, monophonic ringtones are the first ringtones that users could download. Monophonic or monotone ringtones as we call them sometimes cannot be called melodies. They are like the single notes of a musical instrument. Monophonic tones are actually sound sequences that make use of one note at a time played at different frequencies and pitches. The first mobile phones used these tones and today we see that all phones can play these tones along with other advanced types of ringtones. These were previously developed in RTTTL (Ring Tone Text Transfer Language) and make use of MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) technology.

Polyphonic Ringtones: Polyphonic Ringtones are the next step in the evolution of modern ringtones. As is obvious from the ‘poly’ prefix, these ringtones make use of many sound sequences played at a single point in time, or in other words, simultaneously. Polyphonic ringtones are said to be able to play around 40 notes at the same time. This is the reason why they are considered as the real melody compared to the monophonic ringtones. Most modern mobile phones support polyphonic ringtones and allow you to download polyphonic ringtones. They come in many formats and just like monophonic ringtones, these make use of MIDI technology with the only difference being that they play multiple notes to give musical impact to the ears. However, polyphonic ringtones do not reproduce the original audio.

Truetones – There are many names for the modern ringtones we call Truetones. They are known as true tones, superphonic tones, and sometimes master tones. The credit goes to its ability to play the notes, rhythm and lyrics in a single ringtone. It’s like the original piece of music that we hear as songs. They are the most advanced form of ringtones and provide a great music experience in the form of lovely melodies that we call true or real tones. True tones come in as many formats as the audio formats of the songs could be; MP3, AAC and WMA to name a few.