Sound to rtttl ringtone converter (for picaxe microcontrol)?

Programming and Development General Audio Programming
1

I am working on a picaxe microcontroller sound project
which requires rtttl formatted sound files;
&
desperatly try to find a macOsx compatible
program that converts mp3 (or other common sound formats)
into rtttl files;

i wonder, if you may provide a hint
on how i may solve this problem

  • ideally using audacity - ?

any tip is highly appreciated!

2

If you were on Windows you would find proprietary ringtone programs but I can’t think of anything free that writes RTTTL. On Mac, you pay for most things anyway, but have you searched the internet? How about asking on the Picaxe forum:
Active PICAXE Forum | PICAXE Forum ?

Do you need to convert? It’s probably quite easy to find free RTTTL files for download.


Gale

3

thank you for your reply -

CONVERTERS

amongst other programs
i found “Soundconverter” (a Mac’nWindows app)
which claims to convert into rttl -
but
i did not succeed in doing so yet -

the “Soundconverter”'s manual says:
"… there is no practical way to convert raw audio
to midi as the audio may contain things other than pure notes … "

this might be the reason why i get error messages
every time i try to create a rtttl file from
several different formatted sound files …

PICAXE

the PICAXE-mac-based programmer “macAXEpad”
has a “Ring Tone Tune - Wizard” which generates
rtttl files - the files do not seem to follow a common format
since once i try to play them them on e.g.
http://merwin.bespin.org/t4aphp/index.php
(creates tracks from rtttl files) it would not work

i tried a “rtttl” search on picaxe - there is an entry
on rev-ed.co.uk which refers to links for free-to-download
rtttl files
and
many users who tried altenative sound processing
hardware solutions (such as mp3 components or mp3 -layer hacks)

THE FORMAT

the format itself seem to refer to the musical notation of tracks
which makes it difficult to find a suitable converter
(there is a good description on
[u]http://www.informit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=169460&seqNum=1[/u])

FREE FILES

there are millions out there - googling “free rtttl files”, “rtttl ringtone”
etc. will result in “bucket-full of’s” listings -
but i would like to create my own …

i am now trying to …

compare the picaxe/“Ring Tone Tune - Wizard” generated files
to the ones i downloaded in order to find out about
what i may add/delete within picaxe’s coding to make them
work properly …
on that behalf
[u]http://www.informit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=169460&seqNum=1[/u]
is an extremely helpful read
+
“etunes” a good add-on to understand the matter
(a 30days-free-trial rtttl via pseudo-piano-gui generator )

4

Yes any converter that tries to convert an audio format to RTTTL will have a similar issue as trying to “convert” audio to MIDI. But more programs manage some sort of audio to MIDI conversion than do audio to RTTTL. See:
http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Midi#Converting_from_audio_formats_to_MIDI

If you can convert to MIDI, then MIDI to RTTTL may be less of an issue for example:
http://midi.mathewvp.com/midi2RTTL.htm

Also if you can run WINE on your Mac then you can try Windows programs too:
http://wiki.winehq.org/MacOSX



Gale

5

that really was a lot of helpful hints:

i tried the following -

original (e.g. .aiff formated) file

… imported to “widi”
… created .mid (midi) formatted file

… uploaded to mathewvp site (http://midi.mathewvp.com/midi2RTTL.php)
… generated rtttl formatted data

… pasted onto merwin site (http://merwin.bespin.org/t4aphp/index.php)
… generated & checked rtttl formatted data

----->
though the result might be quite “reduced” i am absolutely convinced
that with …

  • a suitable original file (good contrasts, not too many notes playing at the same time)
  • a little “fiddling-around” within the original file* / “widi” settings
    … there should be a good result !

*there is an introduction on how to prepare sound files within audacity
(http://wiki.audacityteam.org/index.php?title=Making_Ringtones )

thanks a lot, again, for all this!
i’ll definitely have some “wine” now :slight_smile:

\

THE ATTACHMENT

i attached a zip including example files
… no adjustment used at all … just to illustrate the workflow
so the result sounds odd
but, again,
am sure that it is a matter of using a suitable original file,
changing settings & adjustments
to make it a satisfying result
example-unrefined.zip (472 KB)

6

in addition to my 1st and 2nd postings (thanks again, gale - helped a lot !!! ) …

picaxe’s “ring tone wizard”
my mistake was that i did assume picaxe’s “ring tone wizard”
converts .mp3 (.was, aif, …) files into rtttl format;
it doesn’t - it needs rtttl file to convert them for picaxe …