A ringtone, which has become part of the modern mobile music industry, is the sound or a melody made by a telephone to indicate or alert the mobile owner of an incoming call.

With a unique ringtone, you can easily recognize you own cell. An alternative for ringtone, he vibrating alert, can be used in noisy environments or in places where ringtones are disturbing.

Different types of ringtones are monophonic, polyphonic or musical ringtones. Monophonic ringtones have short tunes played with simple tones. In contrast polyphonic ringtones have multiple tones that can be played simultaneously using instrument sounds such as guitar, drums, piano etc. On the other hand, music ringtones, also known as musical ringtones, voice tones, real tones, sing tones or true tones, contain actual pieces of music with all lyrics or the entire song. Music ringtones now play a major role in revenue generated by the music industry worldwide. Today, mobile owners can have text message alerts called voice tones for their incoming calls.

By the end of 1990s, mobile manufacturers like Nokia, Ericsson and Siemens introduced a new feature of composing a ringtone directly on a mobile or even sending a programmable ringtone from computer to phone. However some cell phones may not allow programmable ringtones.

Some companies offer cell phones with audio-mixers so you can mix rhythms and sounds for your own polyphonic ringtone. Motorola introduced this feature in 2002.

Companies like Microsoft and Motorola have introduced the theme ringtone. For instance select a theme called jungle, and you get a combination of a tropical ringtone with the pictures of gorillas and rainforest on the screen.

Some of the ringtones are free and downloadable from sites such as Napster or Jamster.

Some cell phones include composers which allow users to compose a new melody alert by typing a series of keys. There are some copyright issues involved, however. Every reproduction of musical excerpt must pay a copyright fee to the owner.

If youd rather be more creative, you can use ringtone composer and ringtone converter to compose your own ringtone or to convert ringtones that are available on the Internet.