Author Topic: Library music used in ringtones  (Read 1454 times)

fusoxide

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Library music used in ringtones
« on: October 06, 2022, 12:12:49 PM »
After the database error that recently happened here, everything after April 2020 sadly got wiped. I've decided to recreate my thread explaining the usage of library music as preloaded ringtones by phone manufacturers such as Motorola and Nokia.

Motorola:
Starting from 2004 and lasting until 2013, Motorola licensed hundreds of tracks from APM Music - encompassing libraries such as KPM Music, CPM, Bruton and Sonoton. This was handled by in-house sound designer Conor O'Sullivan, who had previously written his own ringtones for Motorola. He looked through tracks on APM that sounded sonically interesting enough to work well as ringtones. The deal with APM Music also led to MIDI covers being created by a person named Keith Manners; these were also used on many phones as most of their phones before around 2008 did not have enough memory to have full MP3 ringtone sets, so in many cases the whole set of them were MIDI except about 1-4 of them.

Fellow researcher EpicJake has created a YouTube playlist of these tracks. We also have a spreadsheet documenting Motorola ringtones here.

Nokia:
While the vast majority of Nokia ringtones were composed in-house or by contractors, occasionally library music was licensed from Sound Ideas and later UPM, mostly jazz or Latin music. Several sound effects were also licensed from Sound Ideas too, but I won't list these here since they're not music.

These ringtones include:
Sound Ideas: Acclaim, Big band, Fiesta, High society, Mambo, Paraiso, Reflective, Slick/Smooth, Trim
UPM: Closing/Shakers, Solo

Nokia also licensed some library music as preloaded music tracks too, probably from UPM. Some of their ringtones were also based on Big Fish Audio demos too, though that doesn't really count as library music.

Vodafone:
Vodafone's MIDI ringtones are probably original compositions, though their later audio ringtones seem to have been licensed from UPM too, such as Smokin' Funk and Snoogle. The titles were not changed from the original tracks.

Alcatel:
Most of Alcatel's ringtones were created by a guy credited as "Donald Kepple", and many were plagiarised from other manufacturers (especially Nokia) where the melodies or chords were changed to dodge copyright. However, one of their Android ringtones named Poltergeist was licensed from royalty free music site DigitalJuice. Others may have originated from there too, but I'm not sure.
musician and archivist; runs Tech Product Bangers on YouTube

Mr

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Re: Library music used in ringtones
« Reply #1 on: October 11, 2022, 04:07:48 PM »
Thanks for re-posting!


Some guy going by "Ringtone Bangers" made a mix of 00's era ringtones for NTS which features some library cues - I'm guessing these were the ones from APM you mentioned:
https://www.nts.live/shows/guests/episodes/ringtone-bangers-5th-may-2022

The names I recognize are Mark Nolan/David Redwitz, Nick Tidy and Klaus Stühlen (all Sonoton) and Ray Flowers/Ernie McKone (Bruton).

fusoxide

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Re: Library music used in ringtones
« Reply #2 on: October 12, 2022, 04:51:59 PM »
That's me actually. I run an account called Ringtone Bangers + More (formerly just Ringtone Bangers) on Twitter, YouTube and Instagram, and I was invited to do a guest show on NTS Live. Unfortunately they made an arse of the blurb, because not all of them are from the 2000s (there's early 2010s stuff too) and it's a mix of polyphonic and audio ones. And yep, the names you mentioned are all library composers who had their work licensed in the form of Motorola ringtones - there's also Nick Tidy, who did a few Sonoton albums too. Paul Sebastien's track here, used as a Sony Ericsson ringtone, is from the Headspace Music Library which FirstCom later adapted into CDs. A few of the others, such as Ben Lord and Douglas Holmquist, also done library music for Bruton and Nova respectively, though their tracks here are originals.
musician and archivist; runs Tech Product Bangers on YouTube

EpicJake03525

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Re: Library music used in ringtones
« Reply #3 on: October 27, 2022, 04:29:22 AM »
http://onj3.andrelouis.com/phonetones/unzipped/Motorola/KRZR-K3/Plush.mp3

This Motorola ringtone right there might possibly be a removed APM track. I have no luck finding this one.