Filed under: Humor, Multimedia, Software, iPhone
CTU ringtone for iPhone
Just last night we were chatting about ringtones on the Talkcast, and I mentioned that I was so happy with my iPhone that I hadn't taken steps to change either the ringtone or the wallpaper yet-- that Xylophone ringtone is probably the best ringtone I've ever heard.Until now, anyway. Matt Devost used that GarageBand tip posted by Apple to turn none other than the CTU ringtone from tv series 24 into an easy-to-install,
And this also illustrates just how easy it is to make these things now. Matt says he just put this together in GarageBand, and then followed Apple's doc, and all I did was drag it from my Desktop into my iTunes ringtones folder. Super simple. Now, if you'll excuse me, I think I hear my phone ringing. Must be the President wanting to know how the hostage situation is going.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Jesse said 4:11PM on 12-17-2007
That is a common ringtone for older Cisco(?) office phone systems. We used to have the same ring at my company but I can't remember which company made the phone. Maybe Lucent?
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tcbritt said 4:12PM on 12-17-2007
i am not very skilled at all with the hacking aspects of the ipod, but i have had this ringtone on my iphone for weeks, download ctu ringtone in mp3 form from http://www.ccir.ed.ac.uk/~jad/ringtone.html and load to your jailbroken iphone through itunes. Install SendSong from Installer.app on your iphone and use this program to create a ringtone from this mp3. The process takes all of 5 minutes and everytime i hear that ring it is worth it!
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Mystic said 4:26PM on 12-17-2007
Maybe you havn't heard?
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=307108
XLM said 4:13PM on 12-17-2007
I think it was AT&T. They had a corporate phone called the Merlin. When I first heard the "CTU" ringtone, I thought, "huh... it's a Merlin"
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Sam Gross said 4:54PM on 12-18-2007
Yeah...AT&T created this ringtone for the first IP-based phone systems in the 80's, back when it was Bell Telephone. It's been a pretty standard ring for office phones until the last few years, when Companies started to allow customers to choose their office ringtone.
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Sander Backus said 4:26PM on 12-17-2007
It's a standard 'office' ringtone for linksys/cisco phones, i have the same phone as they use in the tv-series and the ringtone is loaded on it by default.
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hungryduck said 4:34PM on 12-17-2007
it's not a xylophone!!! It's a marimba!
-sigh-
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Dave said 4:42PM on 12-17-2007
There *is* a xylophone ringtone, though Mr. Schramm says he hasn't changed the default, which is Marimba.
The ringtone is definitely Cisco, not AT&T Merlin. The phones were visibly Cisco as well. What used to bug me (I gave up after Season 2) was that there didn't seem to be a different ringtone for internal and external calls, something default to these phones. I know, I'm picking nits.
Mike Schramm said 4:48PM on 12-17-2007
I did change the default from Marimba to Xylophone. I just hadn't added any custom ringtones until this one.
Steve said 4:40PM on 12-17-2007
I want this now!!
And, apparently, so does the rest of the internet. Poor guy's blog must be getting slammed, i can't get through...
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Mystic said 4:43PM on 12-17-2007
Goto post #2's site and you can easily make your own.
blank said 4:42PM on 12-17-2007
Yeah, it's a Cisco tone.
I used the tone for a couple of years on my Nokia 6260, then on my LG vx9800 and finally on my iPhone for the last few months.
I also have the alternate cisco tone from 24 on there, which is a great alarm.
People get excited whenever they hear that ringtone. At one point 4 other people I know had it on their phones as well (back when it was easier to just set a .mid as a ringtone)
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Matt said 4:51PM on 12-17-2007
Sorry folks. My server can't handle the load. Feel free to mirror if you want.
I just built on what was already out there and this is an old Cisco VOIP tone.
Matt
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Mark Ross said 4:49PM on 12-17-2007
I used to have this on my old cell phone a years back, but then someone pointed out... "That's a ringtone for a LANDLINE phone, dumb@$$!" I then tried to find 24's generic Jack Bauer cellphone ringtone, and upon failing, quietly slunk into a corner.
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Matt said 4:57PM on 12-17-2007
Actually, my server is fine. My T1 is not. Sorry about that, but enjoy the ringtone....
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Pete Zich said 4:54PM on 12-17-2007
Yeah, I found a copy of the ringtone somewhere online a while ago and made it for the original software on the iphone, again with itoner later, and now with garage band, so fun when people recognize it.
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Scott said 5:10PM on 12-17-2007
@7 -- The tones are clearly recognizable as from an AT&T Merlin. If you don't believe me, also see #12 and #15 here:
http://discussion.treocentral.com/showpost.php?p=659870
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Gary Brinkman said 5:37PM on 12-17-2007
This is not a standard Cisco ringtone. I work with these phone and they don't come with that ringtone, if you want it on them, you have to convert it and upload, much the same way with the iphone. It is a very old Merlin ringtone.
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Ted said 5:46PM on 12-17-2007
I really don't understand how this is considered news. I have had this ringtone for months just by downloading the CTU ringtone mp3 from some 24 fan site, changing it to an ACC in iTunes, then renaming the file extension to .m4r. This was all on, engadget (which is also Webblog Inc. site just like TUAW) months ago... no hacking involved, just tricking iTunes.
link: http://www.engadget.com/2007/09/08/itunes-7-4-1-ringtones-re-rename-workaround-discovered/
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Matthew said 6:17PM on 12-17-2007
hahaha on the first day on my new job in the fall my phone rang with the 24 ring and i almost peed from laughing. its the default cisco ip phone ringer. my office sounds like ctu all day
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