I’m absolutely certain that everyone who has heard my hand-tooled “Born to Run” ring tone has been left in awe…
…but I am very careful to put it on silent when I step into a business meeting or go to church. Haven’t been to a movie in ages, but I would definitely put it on silent there too.
That’s what I have mostly done, but this new cheapo phone has no less-obnoxious ringtone, so I downloaded the goofiest 80’s song I could find off the cheap songs list. (Der Kommissar!) I actually want to get a nice Bollywood song on there, but that would require time, attention, and money so it hasn’t happened yet.
I should note that since no one ever calls me, no one ever actually hears Der Kommissar…
I have a few custom ringtones set on my iPhone;
Basic ringtone; Klingon red alert siren
old college friend; TARDIS dematerializing sound
I also rotate through some Mac startup chimes
I refuse to use song snippets, all my ringtones have a “ring-ish” sound to them, I think of my ringtones as a sort of “inside jokes”, a Dr. Who fan, a Trek fan, or a fellow Mac user would get what my ringtone was, to someone not “in the know” they just sound like unusual rings
and for the most part, the volume and sound profile of these ringtones (TARDIS excepted) are less annoying than a conventional ringtone
I set mine to vibrate when I’m gonna be someplace where others will hear it, but when it’s just me, it’s Swan Lake (downloaded from Phonezoo). My husband’s is the theme from Monday Night Football.
The ringtones that came with the phone just weren’t any fun. Swan Lake is fun. Reminds me of the old Universal horror movies.
In my opinion, the only time a special ring is obnoxious is when the volume is set too high.
My ringtone is the first couple measures of “The Wanting Comes In Waves” by the Decemberists. It sounds ringtone-y enough not to embarrass me when it goes off in public.
I’m generally a nervous wreck, and ringtones that start out loud give me the jitters, so I use two ringtones:
[ol]
[li]The opening music from Futurama (default)[/li][li]The beginning of Grey Matter by Oingo Boingo (people I want to think about whether or not to pick up)[/li][/ol]
The Futurama one starts with a “fashweoshwoom” and the first notes sound like they’re from church bells. This is an awesome ring tone.
The Grey Matter starts out slowly and at a low volume, then gets much louder. (I’m not sure what instrument makes the first notes; probably just some simple setting on a synthesizer).
Ditto. Not only do I find most tones annoying, but it seems to take most people four or five rings to get around to answering them, but which time the grinding of my teeth almost drowns them out.
I do try to stick with instrumental portions of songs or parts where the singer is oohing or humming or the like.
However, I couldn’t resist adding a clip from Fairytale of New York to my phone.
I like my ringtones… I used the opening bars of Bittersweet Symphony for ages, but I just switched to Mmmbop, 'cause I saw it on House and thought it was pretty funny.
My parents’ place, my boyfriend, my work and my best friends all have their own ringtones.
When I’m filming, I give everyone on crew a seperate ringtone (as a group) from the default.
It’s more about being able to decide whether or not I have to pick up the phone without even looking at the caller ID.
Yes, I said it. I will spend lots of time editing mp3s to make rintones so that I can be just that little bit more lazy. And I like it.
Or you could go to My Tiny Phone and create one and download it via your phone’s web browser for free. You have to register, but that’s also free. Or you could also do what I’ve done in the past, which is use Audacity to create one, then just email it to yourself and retrieve the email on your phone and download the file. Mp3 files of 30 seconds or under are small enough to easily send via email.
Since I’ve gotten my iPhone, however, I just create mine in iTunes and synch them onto the phone. My main ringtone is “Voices” by Hall and Oates (Didy-doo-wop, I hear the voices. Diddy-doo-wop, can’t stop the voices.). I have also used Men at Work’s “Who Can It Be, Now?”
A few phones ago, I did assign certain tones to certain people, and it was handy, but I haven’t bothered to do this with any subsequent phones.
My G1’s current ringtone is the ukulele theme from Arrested Development and the text message notification is “annyong!”
Amen!
I keep one ringtone for personal calls which is a clip of classical music, played at a volume that isn’t really audible more than a foot or so away from me unless I’m in a quiet room (I’ve been known to miss it, and the phone is usually attached to me).
I also have the obnoxious old-school ringtone of death, that sounds like a cross between an alarm clock and a classic rotary phone. That’s for when I’m on call, only for calls coming in from our support line, and only chosen because it’s guaranteed to wake me up.
This is pretty much exactly how I go about ringtones. It’s not like my phone doesn’t tell me who’s calling and it’s some big mystery when I answer.
Current ringtone: Super Mario Brothers invincibility theme. 
/bragging
Only bad people have cellphones.
(Except for the wife. 
)
My ringtone is REM’s “Feeling Gravitys Pull”. The very beginning, where the guitar starts in. It sounds sort of like ringing, but cooler.
I hate most ringtones, because they start in the middle of the song, not at an instrumentally interesting part. So I made my own, and I’m quite pleased with it. The only ringers that truly annoy me are the ones that are made to sound like vintage phones, oddly enough.
I wish I knew how to make my own ringtones 
My wife has a tone, my students have a tone, and then there is one for everybody else.
My god do I ever agree. It drives me crazy when I call a fucking adult and have to listen to clips of whatever the hell is playing at clubs these days.
Well ringtones remind me of answer phone messages in the 80s. It was cute to make a unique or funny message for your answer phone but after one or two rings it gets on your nerves.
I mean do you really need a different ring tone for each of your fifty best friends. Just look at your caller ID.
