ringtones, what are they good for?

[IB_Staff]

Ring Tones, "make more money from ring tones than downloads"

Silly, never worked for us, that is, making a mint from ring tones. Here is why.
Ring tones are easy to make. The phones I have, they use mp3s for ring tones. I can rip my own CD, use one of my mastered waves, chop it to what I want, convert to mp3 and email it to my phone. Once there is it very simple to tag it as ring tone. Did I have to pay for it? Nope

Do you think others out there are paying for it? Most around me, no. Pirates they are. Do you think they care? No

Nevertheless, here is what seems to work. I placed some key parts to some of our tracks in my phone as ring tones. When they go off, I get some very interesting comments sometimes from those around me. The most popular seems to be the opening to "Dark Crystal", off our album "Space Elevator". They like the music box piano we used.

So how do they find out this info? When asked, I hand them a business card with all the details of our band. This has lead to downloads and some CD Sales. Often I just mail them or hand them a demo in hopes that it might lead to some sales down the road. A good example of this good will, a local DJ was standing near by when I was asked. I gave the lady the business card, told her how to find us, to email me if she had any problems making a ring tone. He over head that conversation and thought, what nice people. He has since been a major player of our tracks.

Nevertheless, what about those who do not know how to do this? Odd, most around me seem very tech enough to pull this off as well as find my tracks in the other than paid areas around the net if they are being so nasty about it. But what if?
The usual ring tone spots might carry your music. CD Baby has a spot there that will allow you to choose how many seconds into the track and end spot. Or, you can just set up a sales spot, give away the ring tone and so on. I do not think you are going to make a mint here with ring tones.

How about those phones that do not use mp3s for ring tones?

Cakewalk makes a nice program called pyro, version 5 it is now.
cakewalk.com/Products/Pyro/123.asp Tonethis is the main software inside pyro for ring tones, so you could go here tonethis.com . See also the tonethis site for further info, they have a forum so you can ask about certain other phones. Then there is the search.com and look it up for other free software as well as methods.

Who sales ring tones?

Well if you are on CD Baby, make sure you sign up for muze.com, they seem to do the AT&T stuff. When I say sign up, that is, make sure you have many things checked off for digital distro so you are not left behind. Some times it takes a long while to get digital companies to list you. Else, sell them off your site or give away.

dale

band web pages
Inquisitor Betrayer
"Space Elevator" Get it at http://cdbaby.com/cd/inquisitorbetrayer
http://www.inquisitorbetrayer.com , http://www.myspace.com/inquisitorbetrayer , http://www.musicforte.com/member/ib_staff and
Angel's Wings www.myspace.com/lorrainekay
iTunes http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?playListId=200365877

New group for Serious Musicians, Serious_Musicians@yahoogroups.com, for those
who want to spend less time marketing and more time making music

Escuchen a los Inquisitor - Musica para Inteligentes.

[yourockradio]

I've been thinking that ringtones are kind of passe' these days. Haven't studied the market though.

[veikoh]

Ringtones was good business for someone 2003-2005, especially to mobile operators as the payment model was for $1:
50 cents to mobile operator
25 cents to distributor
25 cents to artist

Veiko

[Reconsiderate]