Mixing For Ringtones, cellphone mixing question Options

[furiousg]

Can anyone give me any advice on how a song should be mixed, so that when played on a cellphone - it sounds clear and crisp?

assume an average rock-n-roll song - guitar, vocals, bass, drums - that would then need to be converted to MP3 at no more than 128kbps.

what's the right register for audiobility? any thoughts?

thanks!

-G.

[mobilegazer]

well i don't know the actual typical frequency range of a cellphones speakers, but you'll definitely want to lowcut your mix to remove all frequency components that won't get played back correctly (they'd only chew up your headroom and cause intermodulation distortion). my guess would be something like 300-500hz for cuttoff frequency. you could record white noise as a ringtone, play that back with a couple of standard-phones and mic that with a good, linear mic. then do a spectrum analysis to see the range that is safely played back, then limit your material to that range.
a general consideration is that phones will usually be designed to reproduce voice....so anything in the frequency range of voice is more likely to be reproduced okay (or "less crappy"...;-) ).