Some things to consider about ringtones:
- Nobody will think your ringtone is cool. You know when you're on the bus and some chav is playing bad techno out their phone? Or some emo kid is playing some shit screamo music? And they both think they're being really cool? Sorry to say it, but that's you that is.
- Don't pick your favourite song, it won't be your favourite song for long.
- Consider the following situation: You're on the bus or the train, you're listening to music on headphones, your phone rings, but you don't hear it or feel it vibrate, and you forgot to switch it to silent. Everyone thinks that you're being a dick and listening to music through your mobile phone, although you don't realise this until later when you see the missed call. This has happened to me a couple of times at least. Fortunately once my ringtone was one that I think was fairly obviously a ringtone, but the other time I wondered why someone was giving me dodgy looks and only realise later that they thought I was being a complete tool. That's why I think obvious ringtones are better.
I used to have the outro to Deliverance as my ringtone - I made a midi version back when phones generally weren't good enough to play audio files (although back then you knew when it was someone's phone ringing rather than them listening to music on it) - but I later had an audio clip. To be honest, it somewhat spoiled it when I actually listened to the song, although not anymore. Then I had something which I made myself, and after a while, because of above mentioned situations, I changed it to something I thought would fairly obviously be a ringtone - the 20th Century Fox fanfare. I don't particularly care if I get sick of that.