Ringtone Tools

Nokia Smart Messaging

Phones: 1260, 3360 (TDMA), 5165, 6210 (GSM), 6360, 7160 (TDMA), 8260 (TDMA), 8290, and many other Nokia phones. I've also read the Samsung T100, N400, N500, and N600 can be loaded like this.

Nokia's Smart Messaging is a way to send ringtones, logos, and other such files to mobile phones over SMS messages. Song files and images are converted into binary codes that the phone can understand. This method is actually fairly limited since SMS messages are limited to 160 chars. This limit is slightly overcome by the ability to break up a "Smart Message" into multiple parts. Technically you could break it up into 255 parts, but no phone I've ever tried has supported more than 3 parts.

Ringtones created by Smart Messaging are monophonic only. That means that these songs can only play 1 note at a time and they are usually just beeps and buzzes. Most newer Nokia phones support polyphonic ringtones. These phones can play multiple notes at one time and usually sound like real musical instruments. Phones that support polyphonic ringtones can be loaded with usually .mid and .mp3 files and are loaded typically over the phone's webbrowser using WAP (or WAP Push probably if you're helping people load ringtones from your webpage). These phones also should be able to get ringtones over a datacable or bluetooth. But if your phone is too old to support these or you really do want monophonic ringtones, keep reading.

Nokia phones that support Smart Messaging can be loaded with ringtones and logos through SMS text messages and I believe also through a datacable (I've never loaded a ringtone with the datacable before). This was the first format supported by Ringtone Tools and I've used it on many phones. The file format for sending Smart Messaging ringtones and logos over SMS is the .sckl format. Ringtone Tools is also capable of producing just the hex or binary files that can be transmitted through SMS without the SCKL headers. The -x, -u, -k, -s options will help with this. Also, you can create .OTT and .NOK files.

NOTE: I have tried to send //SCKL ringtones through T-Mobile's text messaging service to Nokia phones, but they put junk in the text message itself so this cannot be done. I wouldn't recommend T-Mobile if you are looking for free ringtones for Nokia (and possibly other) phones.

Example:

ringtonetools yngwie_trilogy.rtttl yngwie.sckl
ringtonetools usa.imelody usa.sckl

ringtonetools hemglass.mid hemglass.sckl

You should now be able to take the text from yngwie.sckl, cut and paste that into a web page that allows you to send a text message to your phone, and when you send it to the phone it should recognize it's a ringtone and load it.

If there are multiple messages (each message starts with //SCKL) then you need to send each message one by one. Most Nokia phones have a limit of 3 messages. Also note that most mobile phone providers have different maximum lengths for SMS messages. Most seem to be around 140 chars so Ringtone tools defaults to 140. If your phone provider allows a different sized message you can change this with the -s option. NOTE: I've received emails from people about this 140 char limit. People complain the limit is really 280. The 140 limit is a limit in the WEB PAGE. Yes it is true that an SMS gateway can take 280 octets instead of 140, but most users (including me) don't have direct access to a gateway and have to send the ringtones through an SMS web page (which was the original intent of the program). Therefore the default limit is 140. If you'd like it to be bigger you can use the -s option.

yngwie.rtttl will produce a result like this:

//SCKL15810000010201 024A3A5D51C9A5B1.. etc

//SCKL15810000010202 8B0AB12598698A22C4.. etc

If your provider allows you to send text messages to your phone from a web page, go to that web page and send each message one by one like this:

Make sure you don't add any extra line breaks into the message or the song could come out scrambled.

Note: Ringtone tools knows the input file is an rtttl by the inputfile extension .rtttl and knows the output file is Nokia by the outputfile extension .sckl. For more info read the ringtonetools usage.

To send logos you do the exact same thing. You can make logos both out of BMP's and text files. It's best to size your bmp file the same size of the logo you want to create. Ringtonetools defaults to 72x14 (which I believe is the standard size). If your BMP/text is too big for the logo you want to create then it will be cropped to fit.

To make logos out of a text file simply create a text file where the background color is represented by a space and a dot is represented by any other character. See the sample face.icon included with the Ringtonetools for a good example.

Example:

ringtonetools -intype text face.icon face.sckl

Graphics can be used as screen savers, logos, messages with icons, and group icons. This is if your phone supports them. My old Nokia 7160 only supported group icons.