Uploading Files to a Non-Bluetooth Sony Ericsson

It's been a year and a half now since I got myself a phone capable of playing polyphonic ringtones. That is, rings that are composed of more than one line, and include melody, harmony, and even percussion. It's a neat feature which allows you to really personalize your phone. It's also very impressive to onlookers in a nerdy sort of way.

	My Sony Ericsson T310, with better lighting.

The problem is that phones usually don't come with any particularly fancy rings. Mine came with a few really bad techno-dance rings included by the manufacturer. So if you want your phone to ring out of the box with the A-Team intro, an Elton John song, or a theme from the Lord of the Rings, you're out of luck.

There exist on the internet numerous sites that sell polyphonic ringtones. Unfortunately, finding a reputable site is not easy. Search for polyphonic ringtones on Google and you'll be bombarded with a slew of sleazy-looking British sites. You select the ringtone you want, give them your phone number, and they send you the ringtone via SMS, a mobile messaging protocol. Well, that's all fine and good, except for the fact that some sleazy site now has your phone number. Depending on how reputable/disreputable the site is, this may mean you'll end up getting tons of SMS spam on your phone. What's worse, some providers will charge you for messages sent AND received, which means you'll be paying for the spammers' bandwidth. Jamie, who works for Microcell (grudgingly, I might add), has encountered numerous customers in this situation, and has little to offer them other than discontinuing their account and assigning them a new number.

If you live in Canada, I recommend Much Music Mobile. They're the Canadian equivalent of MTV, but they also sell ringtones and other mobile phone media online. I bought the theme to Monty Python's Flying Circus, otherwise known as the Liberty Bell March by Sousa. They send you your purchases via SMS, but I haven't received any spam from them, or anyone else. The selection isn't bad, but it could be better. The files are also fairly short, about 8 bars long. I paid two bucks for my ringtone. Not bad, but I think I could do just as well for free.

So here's the big secret: polyphonic ringtones are standard MIDI files. Phones simply give priority to the lines based on track number. MIDI files are highly ubiquitous on the internet (ie: free). So why pay for a limited selection? I found some great MIDI files to use as ringtones at the VideoGame Music Archive, which has loads of little melodies from Nintendo games of yore. The real trick is getting files unto your phone.

	FMA tells you everything about your phone... EVERYTHING.

Step 1: Getting the Appropriate Software and Hardware

Now, if you're one of those lucky people who has a Bluetooth-enabled phone and a Bluetooth adapter for your computer, you probably won't have much trouble transferring files. There are some great programs for linking to phones and other mobile devices. On Mac there's Apple's iSync, which works mainly with Bluetooth phones and Nokia phones that have USB adapters. For Windows there's a great open-source tool called Float's Mobile Agent. It does file transfer, lets you sync your contact data with Outlook, lists your recent calls, the phone operating temperature, the current signal strength, and a plethora of other data you didn't even know existed.

My phone, a Sony Ericsson T310, doesn't have Bluetooth capability. Nor can I e-mail file attachments to my phone (believe me, I've tried, extensively). It has an IR port, but I haven't found many other machines with that capability. For me, the best option was to acquire a DCU-11 cable, which allows me to connect my phone to a computer via USB. They sell for $50 CDN new, but you can find ones for a couple of bucks on eBay, as I did. Unfortunately, driver support for the DCU-11 cable on Mac OS X is virtually non-existent. After hacking around in the terminal for an hour, I gave up and simply decided to use a PC.

Step 2: Configuration

The cable comes with a CD that has a Windows driver and some connectivity software from Sony. The driver worked, Sony's software (the Ericsson communications suite) didn't. That's where Float's Mobile Agent came in. First you have to do some configuring. Make sure you've installed FMA and the DCU-11 drivers. The easiest way to do this is to just plug the DCU-11 adapter into your computer and insert the Sony CD when asked. One the driver is installed, go into Settings -> Control panel -> Administrative Tools -> Computer Management. From here, go into the Device Manager, and expand the Ports (COM & LPT) section. If your cable is plugged in and the drivers are correctly installed, you should see a "USB Cable DCU-11" device (figure 1). Note down the com number assigned to it.

Open up Float's Mobile Agent. Go to the Tools menu and choose Options. In the General tab, choose Serial Port, and select the COM ID assigned to your DCU-11 cable from the Port menu. Set the Baudrate to 9600 (figure 2); this should be compatible with most phones. Then go to the OBEX tab. With my phone, I had to Disable IRMC sync to get the program to connect properly (figure 3). Plug your phone into the adapter, and click the Connect button in Float Mobile. If successful, float should show you your recent calls and tons of other info in the main screen. You can now use Action -> Upload to send files to your phone.

Step 3: Enjoy!

Now I can put any MIDI file I want on my phone as a ringtone. Some MIDI files may not sound the same on your phone as they do on your computer. The synthesizers in most phones are quite primitive (naturally, since they are only cell phones). Most of the files I uploaded sounded great right off. I did tweak a couple of them in my MIDI Sequencing program to get the instruments and volumes I wanted. My phone now has music from Super Mario Bros. 2 and 3, Super Mario World, the Legend of Zelda, MarioKart Double-Dash, Final Fantasy 7, and the theme to Animaniacs.

Yesterday, I sent an SMS to Denai's phone including the Zelda theme (which, upon hearing it, she desperately desired). We have the same service provider, but her phone is a Siemens CF62. The tone sounded a bit different on her phone, but was generally just fine. Unfortunately, I was unable to send the Bubble Bobble theme to Jeff, who uses a different provider. This is probably for the best, because I would likely be lying face down in a pool of my own blood right now has I succeeded. Barring technical limitations, I am free to distribute my uploaded tones to anyone.

It's a needless toy, yes. But it's fun and geekalicious. Let's hear it for gadget-love. Now if I could only find a girlfriend...