Mine is either on vibrate, or it plays John Cage's 4'33" .

Bane of my life in an open plan office ruddy ringtones. Around me I have the classic Nokia one, that bloody awful 'da da da' thing that is preinstalled on Motorola, someone else has 'Brown Eyed Girl' piping up every 5 mins, there is one with 'I Am the Resurrection' on it. The worse one is the revving sports car noise vvvvvvvvvaaaaaammmm.

the trick is, to have something that's identifiable as your own, and more importantly, something that's got immediate attack; you can't have a song that's got a quiet intro. (Personally, I wouldn't like a ringtone that comes in halfway through a song, so you need one that hits you right between the eyes from the get-go.)

That's why I have Revolution by the Beatles. Electric version, natch.

*further to DrVolumes post above, I should point out that I have my own office so it's not like that many people get ruzzed by it*

is the opening 30 secs or so of Vengeance by New Model Army. No one ever recognises it.

I'd love to download my own, but I can't seem to be able to do it. Anyone know if it can be done?

I miss my old Thames TV ident music when a message arrived. My ringtone was Mike Oldfield's Portsmouth, but it was a bugger to actually hear.

is my main ringtone - JJ's bass scares the life out of anyone within a 1 mile radius, if anyone ever phoned me that is...

I use the riff to The Who's "Substitute" on messages which works well.

I do have 'Stuck Between Stations' by the Hold Steady as my ringtone. Plenty of attack from the off, with a bit more wind up if you don't hear it immediately.

I do keep it turned down. And I have my own office as well.

Alarm is set to the intro to 'Enter Sandman' which is perfect - it starts of quite gently, but winds up quite dramatically if you try to ignore it...

I had a monotone Nokia onto which you could programme ringtones. There was a bit of software called "Nokring" on which you could actually compose ringtones using musical notes and everything.

What did the 24 year old me choose to have as his ringtone?

The theme music from Bullseye.

In shame I've strayed from this and just have it ringing now. When I finally wake up to the modern age and get a smartphone, I might go for something more esoteric.

THE DEVIL, I tell you. Mine is just a ringing phone sound, but 90% of the time, it's on silent. And silent means silent - I don't even have it on vibrate. Apart from anything else, missed calls are a good way of screening who you actually want to call back.

as my message alert.

and the opening bars of 'Krieg Im Den Stadten' by Ensteurzende Neubaten as the ringtone for my accountant.

Ringtones
piano break in Michael Caine by Madness
mid section of Yo Yo Man by Echo and the Bunnymen
band entry at intro of ARe you ready to be heartbroken lloyd
guitar into of Wire by U2
funky front bit of The Artillery Man and the Fighting Machine from The War of the Worlds
intro of Listening Wind by Talking Heads

Message alert
final piano riff of Swimming Horses by SiouxsieATB
vocal intro of Pass the Dutchie by Musical Youth
final seconds of Tales from the Riverbank by the Jam
guitar intro of Uncomplicated by Elvis Costello ATA

bit 1984 heavy for no particular reason

very simple ringing tones on both my phones (one is a work, the other my personal phone).

On my work phone, my wife and son have a different ring tone to others - but it is still a simple ring. I work in an office, anything else is annoying. And in meetings (and most of the time as I am with people) it is on silent.

On my personal phone, my wife has Love, Love Love by Avalanche City. Because its apt and my kids love the song. And it makes me smile when she rings me.

http://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/building/palace/big-ben/a...

It never fails to get positive comments and smiles, which is not something you can say about most ringtones.

.. are the devils work.

It's not big and it's not clever and 99.9% of the time it's neither humorous or remotely interesting for anyone within earshot.

In fact when I worked in an open plan office it's made me devise (in meticulous detail) the imaginary theft and destruction of numerous phones over the years. Listening to 'It's a Barbie World" by Aqua 20 times a day would test anyones patience - even Terry Waites

the one exception, where I found a ringtone which was anything other than "Ring Ring" amusing - was a work colleague who had Love will Tear Us Apart playing when his other half rang.

Last week I made a new ringtone out of Baba O'Reilly - the bit towards the end where it all goes bonkers I looped the drum/organ bit a few times and let the last one run into Daltrey's scream. Haven't got round to copying it to the phone yet. If I do I would hope to answer it before the yell.

All very theoretical for me because I don't get a signal at work and nobody rings me anyway: I'm not a big phone user. If I do get a phone call then at the moment I am notified by the sound of Manu Chao's Clandestino, which is nice and gentle.

Previously I used a couple of ringtones I made myself by looping the start of Primus's American Life and Too Many Puppies.

If I use the phone as an alarm then it plays the mp3s of Rush's Tom Sawyer or Box Scaggs' Lido Shuffle.

If anybody actually called me I would probably get annoyed by the tones like I did in an earlier job when I set up the phone to play the Laurel & Hardy theme if my boss called.

I have the first 40 seconds of Shotgun by Jr Walker & the Allstars - probably my favourite intro of all time

I had 'Changing The Guard' from The Style Council's Aventures Of A Pop Group.

Unfortunately the opening 20 seconds sounded to everyone else's ears like 'I Will Survive' by Gloria Gaynor, so i changed it as I felt it somewhat 'misrepresented' me

I have the opening phrase of Miles Davis's 'So What' for calls from the GLW and The Penguin Cafe Orchestra's 'Telephone and Rubber Band' for everyone else. It still takes me by surprise when I hear Miles in the middle of a shop and wonder where its coming from.

uses Neal Hefti's main title theme from "How To Murder Your Wife" as his ringtone.

He tells me it rang once while he was at work. One colleague burst out laughing and asked him, "you're not married, by any chance?"

He isn't.

But - there was a time a few years back when I was getting annoyed every time the phone rang. This was because most of the calls were people who had failed to deliver bits of the project phoning with a half-assed excuse, no commitment to fixing the problem, and also trying to get out of the scheduled progress meeting to explain it. "I'm free on Friday after 4 if you want to come to Southampton / Bristol / etc".

So I decided that to stop my blood pressure from reaching 4 figures I needed a happy ringtone. So I picked the Tom & Jerry theme. It always raised a smile, both for me and anyone who heard it (on the occasions when my phone wasn't on silent - for reasons of office decorum noted above)

Makes a right racket!

Rainbow's "Long Live Rock n' Roll" seques into something classical I regret I've forgotten the name of into "Karn Evil 9 1st Impression Part 2" by ELP into the Edgar Winter Band's "Frankenstein" into the prelude from Bizet's Carmen and of course ending with "At the Sign of the Swinging Cymbal".

Usually makes me jump out of my skin when it goes off and makes people laugh.

gb

Can't be arsed with ringtones.

A couple of years back, the FPO programmed my phone to come up with The Feeling's "I Love It When You Call" when she phoned me. Time passed and, one day, we found ourselves seated next to the band in a bar in France. Conversation ensued. Mrs L pops off for a wee. My phone then rings.

Mrs L is muchly dischuffed to find that the vagaries of the French mobile network meant that her call hadn't triggered my 'phone to sing out one of Dan Gillespie Sells' tunes just as I was making polite conversation with him.

... my ringtone was Aphrodite's Child's "Ofis".

But I got funny looks on public transport. It's silent now.

Ostensibly so that I'll know it's my phone ringing when I hear it, which isn't always the case if you use the generic sounds, but also as a way of broadcasting my exceptional taste and judgement to anyone within earshot.

I'm currently going through more of a "sounds" than "music" phase, so amongst my arsenal are such diverse excerpts as:

The drum break from "Won't Get Fooled Again" (my current standard tone).
The laughter from the end of Michael Jackson's "Thriller".
The shriek of "HALLELUJAH!" from the Happy Mondays' eponymous hit.
The "HOOOOONK" that opens Madness' "Night Boat To Cairo".
James Brown's "WOW!" from "I Feel Good".

I also have a few others for specific people:
My sister, bless her, loves Coldplay, so her ringtone is "Clocks".
My boss gets "The Lunatics Have Taken Over The Asylum".
My eternally single mate Dan has "Bachelor Boy".
Short-arsed Glen gets Ben Folds' "One Angry Dwarf & 200 Solemn Faces".
I work with a few schools, so they all have Belle & Sebastian's "The Boy With The Arab Strap", (AKA the theme from the C4 series Teachers).

I'm only just starting to see how much time I have on my hands.

Because the beginning sounds like a ringtone. Yet the song was recorded in 1983 when the only choices were trimphones and bells.

Yet another pioneering first from Basildon's electro-prophets that walk without honour in their own land.

Because I like it.

I fought the law (Clash version, natch) and
release the bats (Birthday Party).

I don't get many missed calls.

Finest Worksong: REM
Zero: Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Freakin Out: Graham Coxon
This Charming Man: The Smiths
Qwerty Finger: Everything Everything
All have immediate openings (ooh er) so work really well as ring tones.

the intro to 'AM 180' by Grandaddy.

Worked quite well..

It's always fun explaining it's a tuneful ditty about a man who murders his wife and kids.....

Am I right in thinking that it isn't possible to create ringtones for the iphone 4? Certainly, I can't find any reference to how to do it in the onscreen blurb, save one to purchased ringtones. I thought you could create one from any song you had in itunes that had been purchased from the itunes store, did I imagine that?

Only use it for the FPO's number. Easily identifiable for the answer/ignore option. Handy!

is "All Day And All Of The Night" by the Kinks... it's quite good as it opens with lots of noise, and I usually get the phone before the singing starts...

My mum's got Hey Jude (no need to specify who made this!) which is a pain to be honest. I've heard the first 15 seconds of that song far too many times now... And can't help finish whatever line he get's interrupted in.. do'h!

Boards of Canada. First 30 seconds of.

Quite eerie but warm and fuzzy too.