Ring Tone Transfer Language
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RTTL stands for Ring Tone Transfer Language. It was developed by Nokia to be used to transfer cellphone ringtones.
The RTTL format is a string divided into three sections: name, default value, and data.
The name section consists of a string describing the name of the ringtone. This can be no longer than 10 characters, and cannot contain a ":" character.
The default value section is a set of values separated by commas, each containing a key and a value separated by an = character, which describes certain defaults which should be adhered to during the execution of the ringtone. Possible names are
The data section consists of a character string containing a duration, pitch, octave and optional dotting (which increases the duration of the note by one half).
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Durations
Standard musical durations are denoted by the following notations:
- 1 - Whole note
- 2 - Half note
- 4 - Quarter note
- 8 - Eighth note
- 16 - Sixteenth note
- 32 - Thirty-second note
Dotted rhythmic patterns can be formed by appending a period (".") character to the end of a duration/beat/octave element.
Pitch
- P - Rest or pause
- A - A
- A# - A# / Bb
- H - B / Cb
- C - C
- C# - C# / Db
- D - D
- D# - D# / Eb
- E - E / Fb
- F - F / E#
- F# - F# / Gb
- G - G
- G# - G# / Ab
Octave
The RTTTL format allows octaves starting from the A below middle C and going up four octaves. This corresponds with the inability of cellphones to reproduce certain tones audibly. These octaves are numbered from lowest pitch to highest pitch from 5 to 8.
The octave should be left out of the notation in the case of a rest or pause in the pattern.
Example
An example of the RTTL format would be
fifth:d=4,o=5,b=63:8P,8G5,8G5,8G5,2D#5