Finding a particular sound effect for use as a ringtone?

April 15, 2007 4:02 PM

Care to help me find a ringtone I heard on "The IT Crowd"?

I'm looking for a sound file of the dramatic musical phrase "dun--dun--DUN!!!" to make a ringtone from. Yes, it's not an original idea, I saw it done by the character Maurice Moss on the BBC's "The IT Crowd".

I assumed someone else had already made this tone, and it appears that someone did, last year. It was picked up by BoingBoing and everything. Trouble is that the source is long gone, replaced by a link-farm.

I suspect this phrase is available on some sort of online sound effects library, but I don't know how to describe it.

posted by Wild_Eep to computers & internet (7 comments total)

Here's a copy of the IT Crowd ringtone you're thinking of. (Yes, I use this.)
posted by chrismear at 4:44 PM on April 15, 2007 [3 favorites has favorites]

Heh. I used the techno remix from episode 6 as my ringtone until I realized that I had been so well trained that whenever the thing came up in my iTunes, I'd jump and reach for my phone.
posted by dantekgeek at 6:40 PM on April 15, 2007

Is there a clip of that trio of notes that isn't a rip of the episode audio? I want it, but I don't want the laugh track.

Does anyone know the name of it?
posted by cmiller at 7:54 PM on April 15, 2007

A year or so ago I got a cellphone that supported MP3 ringtones, so of course I decided I wanted that phone sound from Brazil. Surprisingly, I could find no sign of anyone ever having done this before, at least based on a web search, so I had to make it myself. First I had to download by Bittorrent a copy of the movie, then find in it the best example of a ringing phone.
Now this I recorded using this very cool and fun software, Audacity, which is kind of like Photoshop for sound. With this I was able to isolate the one clip I needed, and erase all the anciliary background noise, and then loop it into a 30 second or so continuous ring. It was very easy, and a good bit of learnin.
And you'd probably be able to do the same with a recording from this tv program.
(After this first success I got carried away, making ringtones from clips of Adam & the Ants, and the Fiery Furnaces, and Glenn Gould, and then dammit that phone got wet so I'm back to my old T610 and the old telephone ring....but if anybody wants some ringtones, just e-mail me and I'd be happy to send)
posted by Flashman at 3:31 AM on April 16, 2007

I would expect it to be called something like "dramatic sting" or "dramatic musical sting" but I couldn't find it anywhere. Unfortunately all the audio search engines I can find only allow you to restrict the duration to less than or more than one minute, and so searching for "sting" inevitably gives you pages and pages of Gordon Sumner.
posted by teleskiving at 4:46 AM on April 16, 2007

*shamefully admits that he has The IT Crowd theme as his ringtone*

Which does prompt my American friends to say "that is SOOOOO Annoying!" They don't know!

I did have to make it myself, from one of the show's episodes, but I would TOTALLY be interested in Maurice's, if you can get a clean copy.
posted by indiebass at 2:12 PM on April 16, 2007

I favourited this ages ago, but wanted the sting without the laugh track too. Found it here.
posted by Paragon at 2:46 PM on June 16, 2007