Nokia hires orchestra to compose ringtones

The Finnish mobile company has employed the 55-piece Bratislava Symphony Orchestra to create a range of 25 new ringtones for its latest Lumia smartphones.

Nokia decided to hire the orchestra, which also composed music for video games such as Assassins Creed and Sims 2, after a study revealed that classical music ringtones were the second most popular among mobile users.

Before being recorded with the 55 musicians, the pieces were composed by the mobile phone giant's in-house 'sound designers'.

Some of the themes are already available on the new Nokia Lumia 920 and Nokia Lumia 820. They will be available on some of the models the firm will released in the coming months.

"We started exploring the idea through contemporary classical and film music”, Aleksi Eeben, a sound designer at Nokia, explained. “However, the final result was original pieces that are distinctively ring tones: they are short, and they all have a functional sounds element.”

The audio production company Epic Sound also helped Nokia composing and arranging the ringtones.

Asbjoern Andersen, from Epic Sound, said: “Nokia has one of the most recognisable brand sounds in the world and has done lots of pioneering work to innovate and evolve sound on mobile phones. And I think bringing in a living, breathing orchestra really takes this to the next level.”

Because the Finnish firm wanted to have “unique and organic sounds you don’t normally hear on mobile devices”, it decided to use the orchestra instead of a typical synthesizer in a music studio.

“There’s a lot of thought, effort and new ideas put into the devices – not only in terms of the hardware, but also in the overall user experience and design of the products”,  Anderson said.