Although Thomas Dolby created the famous ringtone for Nokia that was two billion mobiles before the iPhone, it wasn’t his intention to revolutionise the phone world. Initially, Thomas simply wanted to make creating music online simpler and ringtones began as a by-product.
“When the web came along, the only way to make sound was by downloading a file over your modem and playing it back,” he recalls. “I began looking at web pages and thought, ‘Hang on, MIDI music is basically like a web page.’ You sent a lightweight instruction to a chunk of media, told it when to appear and then it’d play it.” Realising there was a more efficient way of producing sound online, Thomas created Beatnik, software to make MIDI music and create samples online. “There was no real market for it at first,” Thomas remembers. “Then Nokia wanted to create ringtones without the need for a Yamaha or Roland chip, and they realised the best way would be to have MIDI music and samples – and that was Beatnik. So the first market for Beatnik was in polyphonic ringtones – years after I’d created it!”
Thomas actually enjoyed the years before Nokia more, saying Silicon Valley was more open to experimentation then. “I spent a few years with Nokia, creating the ringtones and voice alarms for their phones’ soundbed,” he says. “It made for a healthy business, but it wasn’t as interesting as the 90s, when I had the luxury of not needing a revenue stream.”
Leggete l'articolo completo e molti altri in questo numero di
Classic Pop
Opzioni di acquisto di seguito
Se il problema è vostro,
Accesso per leggere subito l'articolo completo.
Singolo numero digitale
Classic Pop Presents SynthPop Vol 2
Questo numero speciale non è incluso in un nuovo
Classic Pop abbonamento. Gli abbonamenti comprendono l'ultimo numero regolare e i nuovi numeri pubblicati durante l'abbonamento.
Abbonamento digitale annuale
OFFERTA SPECIALE: Era
€31,99
Adesso €21,99
fatturati annualmente
Abbonamento digitale di 6 mesi
€16,99
fatturati due volte l'anno