Cellular Nostalgia

I'm one of those guys who likes cell phones that're fully customizable. By that, I mean that all my contacts have a personalized ringtone and text message that fit them. I'm picky like that, but at the end, it proves advantageous - I can listen to something epic or silly go off on my cell phone and while everyone questions what the hell they just listened to, I answer or respond with a smile on my face* as I pick up the phone.

Lately, I've been editing ring tones and sound effects all day on my cell phone. It's been a while since I had to make ringtones for anyone, but I'm beginning to love doing this all again. Back in my senior year of high school I was drafted by a bunch of my friends to make ringtones for them, and it was a great gig - at the time, there was little technology offered out there that could make a ringtone exactly how they wanted.

Of course, now that there's so many apps out there, there's little need for a friend with some tech knowledge to make you a set of personalized sounds, and I think it's a sad age. Sure, these apps can help you record your own things and have rendered services like mine completely obsolete, but it in my opinion, the finished product loses the humanity and personal craftsmanship that I tend to put forward on my ringtones.

Maybe it's just me griping because in my view, these apps just shortcut it. Some of them can only cut in second-blocks (e.g.: making 02:45.00-03:05.00 the ringtone) whereas a finely-tuned product would cut and hash in a fade-in or fade-out (e.g.: fading in at 02:45.24 so the chorus that kicks in at 02:45.80 doesn't seem like someone magically plugged in the auxiliary cords from the recording). Some of them can even splice and rearrange fragments of a musical piece so it works, but again, there's no decent audio-editing mechanisms (e.g.: it can't cut exactly where it's needed).

*breath*

Yeah, I needed to vent that. In an age like this, it seems that the heroes of old just got swept under the rug as some disguised impostors steal the limelight.

I want that light back.





A-Anyway, apart from chucking a bunch of ringtones, sound effects and alarm stuff into my phone, I haven't done much. Got work tonight, too, so that means I have to cut myself off here and prep up.