For anyone interested in creating music using oldskool ringtone composition tools, here's a masterpost detailing them. I think it would be cool to see more chiptune utilizing the software/hardware found on old phones, even though the tools honestly aren't particularly intuitive, then again that goes with a lot of niche old tools.

Yamaha SMAF tools: The MA series chips are very interesting, supporting FM, PCM and later DSP effects. The tools aren't that great, but they exist! There are a bunch of ATS authoring tools you can use: http://onj3.andrelouis.com/phonetones/Software%20and%20Soundbanks/Software/Yamaha%20SMAF/

Beatnik Editor: A tool that lets you author MIDIs and RMFs (MIDI + samples), using the Beatnik Audio Engine found on many early 2000s phones (and prior to that, WebTV, Java virtual machines and some websites). You can connect it to your DAW using loopmidi, so you can directly work with the soundbanks. You can also use effects like reverb, chorus and flanger. Download: http://onj3.andrelouis.com/phonetones/Software%20and%20Soundbanks/Software/Beatnik/Beatnik%20Editor%202.1%20(Windows).zip

Nokia Internal Tune Editor: This leaked tool was used in-house by Nokia to compose complex monophonic ringtones. While of course basic, the octave range is actually quite wide and note lengths are in milliseconds. Download: http://onj3.andrelouis.com/phonetones/Software%20and%20Soundbanks/Software/Nokia/Nokia%20Internal%20Tune%20Editor.zip

CMX Studio: A tool that lets you author PMDs (MIDI + samples) using Qualcomm's CMX engine and various banks from 2000 to 2003. Download: http://onj3.andrelouis.com/phonetones/Software%20and%20Soundbanks/Software/CMX/CMX%20Studio%204.0.14.zip

There's more, but I think I've covered the jist of them. :) You can find more software here: http://onj3.andrelouis.com/phonetones/Software%20and%20Soundbanks/Software

Soundbanks can be downloaded at: http://onj3.andrelouis.com/phonetones/Software%20and%20Soundbanks/Soundbanks/

wonderful!! thank you so much for sharing about them! im feeling curious about which are the other ones you mention about!

There's some more stuff here: http://onj3.andrelouis.com/phonetones/Software%20and%20Soundbanks/Software/ Though not all of these are authoring tools but are just players, but players are also helpful (especially if you write them with say, Microsoft GS Wavetable Synth but go back and forth to make it sound good on a mobile soundbank)

thank you so muchhhh!!! great collection of goodies!! :3c

You're welcome!

Anyways for anyone interested, here's some links on a wiki relating to legacy portable devices. These articles document the technology, such as what sound chip a phone uses, polyphony count, sample rate, etc - could be useful if you want to target a specific device.

https://lpcwiki.miraheze.org/wiki/Yamaha_SMAF
https://lpcwiki.miraheze.org/wiki/miniBAE
https://lpcwiki.miraheze.org/wiki/mobileBAE
https://lpcwiki.miraheze.org/wiki/Qualcomm_CMX

how do i save custom patches for a yamaha smaf ringtone

not sure, but anyways here’s another tool: sonivoxFM (download: http://onj3.andrelouis.com/phonetones/Software%20and%20Soundbanks/Software/Misc/sonivoxFM.zip ). this is a software based FM synth, you can drag a midi into it and render a wav

the fm patches there are admittedly kind of bad (the basses especially)

this is really helpful info and i hope to delve into it eventually and make something in one of these formats

imo it would be really cool to make a lyceum article out of what you posted, with minimal reformatting it'd be right at home there. i checked and you can edit the lyceum at lv7+ so you should be able to make an article!

ringtonist class :3 a 40 second at most track format with specific specs, supported by these tools :O

thanks dami! that'd be a good idea, on it right now though it'll take a bit of time

that being said, glad that people are becoming interested. while i didn't really know about many of these formats before 2020, they're pretty overlooked and are as interesting as game-related ones