this post was submitted on 29 Jan 2024
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Memes

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[–] Norgur@kbin.social 67 points 2 years ago (4 children)

Mp3? These young whippersnappers and their modern shenanigans. 8 bit MIDI is all the sound you'll ever need on your cellphone!

[–] BruceTwarzen@kbin.social 42 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I actually made some cash in 8th grade making ringtones. All i did is looking up what buttons to press on the 3210 on the internet. The weird part was that pretty much strangers would just give me their phone over night because i was too lazy to print it out and do it in school. Rumours were around that i had some weird ass set-up at home like deadmau5 to turn axel f into a midi. I was just using altavista and pressed buttons.

[–] ininewcrow@lemmy.ca 22 points 2 years ago (1 children)

That pre internet era was amazing ... that sweet spot where the internet was just starting to grow but not everyone had it yet.

My brother had a thriving business at around 1997 1998 1999 ripping custom CDs for people. He kept a library of 40 GB hard drive of mp3 and everyone thought he was a god that could make custom music CDs. I played a few of them a while ago and they are absolute crap but at the time no one cared what they sounded like as long as it was new and customized to what they wanted.

The amazing thing was, his business appeared and disappeared in a matter of about two years. One moment everyone wanted him .. then everything and everyone moved on and his business was done.

[–] LastYearsPumpkin@feddit.ch 4 points 2 years ago

Crazy thing is... that's what Trevor Noah did as a youth in South Africa. Had a whole bootleg CD burning business until his setup died and they couldn't get the files back.

So he turned his life around and became extremely famous in the US.

[–] NessD@lemmy.world 21 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Polyphonic Ringtones? Ha! We had to type in some strange numbers to get beeps to change their tune!

[–] DessertStorms@kbin.social 5 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)

I tried so hard to figure that shit out but never managed to actually make anything good (I have zero musical talent), but we had this one friend in the group who had, so they'd always have one of our phones, composing our ringtones lol.. I feel old 😂

[–] Norgur@kbin.social 5 points 2 years ago

Not having to download one via scammy SMS but being able to type them in yourself was WILD

[–] BolexForSoup@kbin.social 4 points 2 years ago

Aww yeah that’s the tune to funky town

[–] RootBeerGuy@discuss.tchncs.de 5 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I used to have the Monkey Island intro midi as a ringtone. It would start real quiet giving me time to either go somewhere I can talk or if I just wouldn't notice it would become loud enough to notice later.

[–] Pistcow@lemm.ee 6 points 2 years ago

I had a midi background for my Angelfire web page.

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[–] Blackmist@feddit.uk 53 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Careful posting this sort of thing. You might accidentally summon the Crazy Frog, and then we'll all be sorry.

[–] AwkwardTurtle@lemmy.world 13 points 2 years ago (1 children)

The Annoying Orange has entered the chat

[–] InFerNo@lemmy.ml 7 points 2 years ago
[–] Stegget@lemmy.world 34 points 2 years ago

Bonus points if you transferred the file to your phone via IR.

[–] Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world 31 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Converting and downloading ringtones was such a pain. It was almost worth paying $2.99 plus $20 in data charges for a 30 second clip that sounds like it's playing on a victrola.

[–] spicytuna62@lemmy.world 19 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

Actually did this for O Green World by Gorillaz when I was 13 in '05. When the bill came in, my dad beat me senseless with those old jumper cables. Man, I loved that funky little ringtone.

[–] prayer@lemmy.world 13 points 2 years ago

Two throwbacks in one.

[–] Darkassassin07@lemmy.ca 27 points 2 years ago (2 children)

I kinda miss swapping mp3s via Bluetooth on my flipphone at lunch, because we only had the space for 3-4 of em, so you had to swap with friends to get fresh music throughout the week.

[–] agressivelyPassive@feddit.de 30 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Bluetooth...

We had to align our phones and the stars to get irda working!

[–] Maultasche@feddit.de 4 points 2 years ago

That was the only way for me to get ringtones from my PC to my phone.

[–] mephiska@kbin.social 3 points 2 years ago

brings back memories of studying in college while listening to 128k mp3's on my Sony CLIE with a massive 64mb memory stick.

[–] HAL_9_TRILLION@lemmy.dbzer0.com 21 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (5 children)

I found a better quality image of this photo but I still don't have any idea what the hell is going on

[–] pearsaltchocolatebar@discuss.online 9 points 2 years ago (1 children)

It's just a picture of my home lab.

[–] kratoz29@lemm.ee 4 points 2 years ago

Looking nice bro!

[–] Ross_audio@lemmy.world 6 points 2 years ago (1 children)

A lot of radio equipment.

BBC News on the monitor.

Maps of Iran on the wall.

I'd bet on amateur/independent journalist picking up as much radio traffic as possible.

[–] Anticorp@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)
[–] Ross_audio@lemmy.world 3 points 2 years ago

Definitely a hoarder too, but too much is on for them to not be using any of it.

[–] uservoid1@lemmy.world 5 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Mickey Gurdus, an Israeli ham radio operator and media listener. In the age before the internet he used to listen to every transmission he could find from his homemade lab.

Mickey Gurdus, Who Eavesdropped on the World

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srcN3KaTjd0

[–] PipedLinkBot@feddit.rocks 2 points 2 years ago

Here is an alternative Piped link(s):

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[–] sneakattack@lemmy.ca 4 points 2 years ago

Air traffic control at home.

[–] thesporkeffect@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago

You know it smell crazy in there

[–] AgentGrimstone@lemmy.world 20 points 2 years ago

I used to have a different ring tone for every friend. I still think of them when I hear "their" song.

[–] deo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 16 points 2 years ago (5 children)

y'all remember the "ring back" tones? i don't think they ever really took off since they are a ring tone that people hear when they call you instead, which is... just... totally idiotic... but i did encounter it a few times in the wild.

[–] acceptable_humor@lemmy.world 7 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I guess its gone from America but it is still very popular in india ... partly because the Network Providers give it as a free feature ... neat cause my friends never pick up quickly

[–] deo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 2 years ago

Is the quality not trash anymore? Maybe it's gotten better and i didn't notice, but music over the telephone has always sounded muddy and distorted to me.

[–] Anticorp@lemmy.world 6 points 2 years ago (1 children)

It's not idiotic, it's awesome! Of course I remember it, I had a great one.

[–] deo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

But... you never get to hear it because when do you ever call yourself? So it's just subjecting everyone else to a song that they may not even like... And besides, the quality was like listening to an underwater phonograph cylinder.

(obviously don't know your music taste; you may actually have had a great song of decent quality. but i wouldn't trust everyone with that power lol)

[–] Anticorp@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

I had something like Danger Zone, or Eye of the Tiger, to get people pumped up when they called me. I don't remember exactly, but I thought it was fun. Nobody cared if it's a good song. It was just a neat little gimmick at a distinct moment in time.

[–] AMDIsOurLord@lemmy.ml 5 points 2 years ago

It's INSANELY popular in Iran and pushed hard by the service providers

[–] Gingernate@programming.dev 3 points 2 years ago

I actually called someone with one of these a few months ago. Blew my mind it still existed!

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[–] MrTHXcertified@lemdro.id 14 points 2 years ago

Real nerds learned how to create SP-MIDIs and structured them to degrade gracefully no matter how limited your phone's synth chip was.

[–] jerrythegenius@lemmy.world 10 points 2 years ago

It's still like that with iphones

[–] CodexArcanum@lemmy.world 9 points 2 years ago

The Saw killer planning his next 10 films worth of traps.

[–] ipkpjersi@lemmy.ml 8 points 2 years ago (1 children)

In some ways though that was kind of part of the fun. You had to really want the song to be willing to do that lol

[–] rgb3x3@beehaw.org 2 points 2 years ago

And after a month, you realized that you Pavloved yourself into thinking your phone was ringing and hating the song when you heard it casually.

It's like using your favorite song as an alarm. Don't know how that doesn't ruin those songs for people.

[–] Magister@lemmy.world 5 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Yup, on my Audiovox 8910, using a special USB cable and some obscure qualcom softwares, to access the "file system" and put a wav at the right place, and it had to be mono 8bits or something.

I didn't want to pay $5 for a 10 seconds ringtones sample of a song. I did it myself :)

[–] r00ty@kbin.life 6 points 2 years ago

The problem was that every phone needed its own cable and software. I bought the entire Nokia set since it was barely any more than a single cable and just did ringtones/custom screens etc for everyone I knew.

[–] M500@lemmy.ml 5 points 2 years ago

I remember programming the songs by pressing the buttons in the right order from some website.

[–] LemmyKnowsBest@lemmy.world 3 points 2 years ago (2 children)

every time someone reposts this I wonder if this is one of those AI generated photos in which everything in the photo looks vaguely identifiable but it's not really identifiable because it's AI and not real. But the man is a man. I know that much.

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