Section 3 of 5
Formats
Monophonic to MP3 truetone — the technical steps that made ringtones richer and the file types that carried them.
- The Chip That Made a Phone Sound Like a BandThe technical step from monophonic tones to polyphonic — how Yamaha's MA-2 and MA-3 chips enabled multiple simultaneous voices on a handset speaker, and which phones first carried them.
- RTTTL: A Text String Someone Could SMS YouThe Ring Tone Transfer Language format — its syntax, its Nokia origin and the fact that an entire tune could be transmitted as a plain-text SMS — and traces how RTTTL strings circulated on early web forums before WAP existed.
- SMAF and the Format Japan Ran OnThe Synthetic Music Mobile Application Format developed by Yamaha for the i-mode and chaku-melo markets, how it related to the MA-series chips, and why it did not become the global standard despite Japan's early lead.
- Truetone: When the Ringtone Was the RecordThe arrival of the truetone — a segment of the actual master recording sold as a ringtone — explaining the AMR and MP3 formats it used, the licensing model that made it possible, and why Billboard created a separate chart for it in 2004.
- M4R: Apple's Container and What It Locked InThe M4R file format — a renamed AAC container restricted to 40 seconds — that Apple used for iTunes ringtones, what it required of a purchaser and how it compared to the open truetone formats it displaced.
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