We want you to create some ringtones for these campaigns. To help you figure out the technical aspects, Mark Phillips from the band Sono Oto, has some tips. He’s the guy who made the ringtones you hear in episode one.

Q: Do you have any tips on how to create memorable ringtones?

A: Copying annoying jingles is always a good place to start. Remember the Seinfeld episode where George says his strategy for wooing women is to get in their head like the Mylanta jingle? “Kaaa-stanz-a!” That works.
Since this is a ringtone, you’re only going to have a few seconds to get your point across, so making some complicated argument probably won’t work. I’d say your best bet is trying to match the tone of their campaign rather than try and get into the nitty-gritty details of their campaign issues. But make sure to use the candidate’s name quickly and often. Having your ringtone be Elvis Costello because Hillary Clinton likes Elvis Costello may be neat, but the connection will probably be lost on anyone else.
From an audio standpoint: cellphone speakers don’t have any bass, so you’ll want to stick to the higher frequencies. The speakers are usually made for speaker-phone so the frequencies that will sound the best are the human voice. Make sure you make it as loud as possible – there’s nothing worse than not hearing that your phone is ringing. Oh, and keep it short. I’d say shoot for no longer than 25 seconds.

Q: Are there free programs on the Internet that people can use to make ringtones? Which ones do you recommend?

A: If you have a mac, your computer probably came with Garage Band which should work great for making ringtones. PC users can download Audacity free. Like Garage Band, Audacity allows you to do multi-track recording. Audacity is also great for capturing audio off the web. For example, if you want to use a sound or a little bit of music that’s on the web, you can play the clip and hit record on Audacity and it’ll record it - just make sure to change the audio source to “Wave Out Mix.”

Q: What if you want to grab some footage that is already out there on the Internet? Where should you look for the best audio?

A: Start with YouTube. Seriously, there’s weird old commercials, rare musical performances, and just plain weird stuff. A lot of shows and networks are getting pretty good about putting everything online. The Daily Show just put up every episode from their archive on their new website. For good political clips, Crooks and Liars (while left-leaning) has tons of audio and video. A google search for what you’re looking for with “MP3” or “clip” also in the search will also turn up good random clips sometimes.

Q: Do people need to save their work in a particular file format? And how can you download your ringtones to your phone?

A: I save them as a .mp3 file and email them to my phone as an attachment. For example, Verizon users can email their phone by sending an email to their number, followed by “@vzwpix.com” [ex: 9175551234@vzwpix.com]. The site PhoneZoo helps you figure out how to get ringtones to your phone regardless of your carrier and your phone. They allow you to upload MP3 or .wav files and either one works fine. It’s a pretty easy site to use but you do have to give them your number. They promise NOT to send you text advertisements or sell your number. So far, they haven’t for me, but, if you’re worried about that, you should find another way.