Ringtone Remix

Some BlackBerry users take a lot of pride in personalization of their smart phones. This covers everything from wallpapers to home screen management to ringtones. Ah, those ringtones – the window into our true character. Tired is the cliché of the interaction between the boss and their employee; where the employee’s phone rings and the tune is…less than appropriate. We can’t help it. We hear a song – we love a song, we want that song as our ringtone. Creating the perfect ringtone from the perfect song isn’t so perfectly easy for everyone to do. Think about it, how often do you search for a ringtone already made for you?

Ringtone Remix puts the power back in your hands. You decide what you want your BlackBerry to blare. The application makes it easy to take your favourite song, select a portion of it and make it into a ringtone – all from your BlackBerry. Admit it or not, there’s a slight sense of disappointment when you have your favourite song as a ringtone, but not your favourite part of the song. Ringtone Remix helps you express who you are – the way you want to.

About Ringtone Remix

Ringtone Remix was developed by Electric Pocket. Anyone who reads my articles will know that I am a fan of their work. The company has also brought FlipSide MP3 player, Ringo Ringtone Manager and BugMe! (among others) to BlackBerry users. I had the chance to review many of their apps in the past and look forward to what they bring out next. Ringtone Remix is available to BlackBerrys running OS 5.0 or higher (touch screen and non-touch screen). The version reviewed is 1.0.1, which has a file size of 1.19 MB

CrackBerry App Store rating: not yet rated

Price: $2.99 (currently on sale for $0.99)

The one Ring (tone) to rule them all!

Be it the chorus or the bridge that you are wanting, Ringtone Remix can help you capture it. I did like the simplistic design of the main menu; you are only snipping sections of MP3 files after all. Actually, I should note that both MP3 and AAC files can be used – DRM protected files are a no-no. Ringtone Remix can access files from either the device memory, or from your media card. Once selected, the song is dragged kicking and screaming back to the main menu. If available, the associated album art will be displayed, along with the Artist and title of the song. Below this information, you can check out the actual waveform of the song.

Ringtone Remix Main Menu

If you found it difficult to look at, as I did, you can zoom in on the waveform to see more detail. Below this, you will see the Pause / Play button, the Stop button and the Loop button (used to help you hear how the clip sounds when it’s repeated). Below this is…well...nothing, so get back up to the app already!

Ringtone Remix Editing clip Ringtone Remix zoom

Let’s focus on the waveform again. The application provides “handles” that can be found above and below the waveform. These represent the beginning (above) and end (below) of the snippet. There is also a red bar (green when highlighted) found on the waveform that acts as a progress bar that can be moved back and forth. Just underneath the waveform three clocks are shown; representing the start time, end time and the current position of the progress bar. Once you have created your masterpiece, click on save (or click on the album cover), name the ringtone and your ringtone is now saved on your media card. You can now do with the ringtone, as you would any other. Heck, why not upload it to the CrackBerry free ringtone gallery while you’re at it?

Now while being able to make your own ringtones on your BlackBerry definitely saves time, you may find trying to pinpoint the exact start and end points takes time. I attribute this to the delay in response time I experienced. Any type of command I would make (moving the “handles, start/stop or pausing the clip), I could count nearly 2 seconds before the order was executed (regardless if I was using the touch screen, track pad or keyboard. This only happened while the clip was playing; the app was quick otherwise.

Conclusion

Electric Pocket has the making of a great application on their hands. Who wouldn’t want to be able to create custom ringtones on the fly? Of course I’m always thinking of future additions. I would like to see the ability to modify the sound clips; like change tempo or add distortion for example. Or perhaps they should combine this app with their Ringo Ringtone Manager app to create Ringo Remix. Now that would be the ultimate ringtone application. Nah I’m just rambling. Ringtone Remix is currently on sale for a special introductory price of $0.99 at the CrackBerry App Store.


Pros

  • Access MP3s and AACs
  • Move the “handles” to find your start/stop points
  • Activate the loop to hear the clip over and over (and over and over and..)


Cons

  • Response time slows when clip is being played

For more information on Ringtone Remix from the CrackBerry App Store

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