14 DAY TRIAL // Social groups are known to be made of people who share diverse passions, hobbies, lifestyles and whatever common things you might think of: they adhere after certain "passwords" have been asked and answered as well and what happens next is by no means what I'm going to talk about in this article.
Few people don't own cell phones these days: from remote countryside domains to the deep urban areas, people use mobile phones. They have made cellphones truly a part of our lives and civilization and even more: they got cellphones in the realm of fashion; not only the glamour fashion but rather the social-type of fashion, including trends, dos and don'ts, whole currents related to which the mobile phone-world should function. From the very first brick-type phones and up to today's smartphones, ringtones have also evolved continuously, ranging from the beep-beep tone up to hi-def MP3 files you can now use on a phone.
Ringtone-creation has quickly become industry and even popular artists have fastly adapted to the new conditions, releasing "official" ringtones, sold for few cents each but whose total commercial value has become huge in just a few years. As expected, ringtone-creation software appeared quickly as well, be it freeware or sold for considerable sums of money, easy and user-friendly or complex and for the pros only. Some people use these for fun, while others have developed a real business out of this. Let's see how...
The Looks
Today's program is the Joy RingTone Converter and it's placed about in the middle-upper class of the price range, the $29.95 you'd have to pay for the registered version being either small money or a futile expense, depending, of course on the use you'll give it.
The first impression was one of a software created for home-use and even for inexperienced users as well. A rather large main window whose biggest element is a waveform sine-view of the song you plan to convert in a ringtone. In the upper part of the window, the main commands have been placed: Open, Rip from CD and Play. Other text menus are also available in this area and they allow quick access to the Batch Converter Unit, generic Options, MP3 Compressor. Another set of buttons operates the direct conversion for each of the supported formats.
Overall, the coloring is pretty and even happy as it does not sport violent colors; no skins are available for the Joy RingTone Converter and no color-schemes either. All buttons and icons have been designed in a totally XP-manner, hi-res and shading being a commonly met feature of them all. Very readable text is present everywhere in Joy RingTone Converter's GUI so it is rather hard to make severe mistakes. Time scale is also a feature which helps you better define portions of track you'd like to convert while the Options window displays very handy content. Technically, even the inexperienced users can easily get to prepare their own ringtones with ease due to the very clear specifications present in each format's setup menu.
I guess you'll understand better why I say the software's operation is easy if I'll just add that Joy RingTone Converter even sports a time counter which visually shows the selection you have just made.
The Works
Apart form dedicated audio formats, there is nothing special in an audio file that renders it suitable or not for use in a cell phone. The balance between its size and quality is the thing which interests everybody most. Be these files WAV, MID, AAC, MP3, MP4 or MMF, 3GP or AMR, the Joy RingTone Converter will easily handle such as to provide you with the ringtone of your dreams. And since a lot of these dreams usually come in the shape of popular hits you generally buy on CD-support, the need for Joy RingTone Converter to have an integrated CD-ripping engine becomes more than expected and obvious.
You can either load an audio file located somewhere on your HDD or simply load your fav CD in your PC's drive and have it ripped directly to the format and the quality you desired. You can either select the entire track and prepare it for use on your mobile phone or just select a portion of it, such as the chorus, a break or an intro and so many more, all limited by your imagination only.
As I assume you have already guessed, you can easily switch between different formats and qualities using either one-by-one processing or batch-processing: just load the files you want to be changed, set up the new output parameters and on you go! Joy RingTone Converter will carry out the task in a very decent amount of time, rather fast.
There is really not much knowledge about the inner workings of different file formats required when using the Joy RingTone Converter: it is so simple and so intuitive that you'll surprisingly find yourselves producing great-sounding ringtones in no time. Be them for your own use, sharing with friends and relatives or even for sale, Joy RingTone Converter will surely be a software you'll grow to like.
The Good
Simple and nice-looking interface, really clear and not confusing the newbies in what ringtones are about. A small and easy-to-use software which can produce high-quality ringtones in a very short amount of time; great even if for fun only!
The Bad
The only feature I felt the Joy RingTone Converter lacked was the zoom tool; in some cases, for a more precise selection of a phrase, this zoom tool could be at least vital and a great time-saver.
The Truth
As I've just said before, the Joy RingTone Converter is a nice program whether you intend to use it for fun or even for commercial purposes. If there is anyone who thinks that the price is a bit too high, just think of how many ringtones you could buy with this money. And then think that the Joy RingTone Converter allows you to "ringtonize" forever; audio CD ripper added!
See what Joy RingTone Converter stands for in the screenshots below:
