Create a Ringtone

Me being me, I really wanted a unique iPhone ring tone, and well, “Marimba” just wasn’t cutting it.

Here is how you can also make your unique ringtone…

Any non-protected file can be used for a ringtone on your iPhone.  First you need the song that you want to use.  If you have an idea for a ringtone, (and its not actually a song), you can go to a site like Free-Loops.com where you can search for something more unusual to use. ( I wanted an old modem dial-up sound for my ringtone which is why I started on this quest to figure out how to do it! )

If you are more conventional then Open iTunes and find the song you want to have as your ringtone. Now listen through the song and choose a part of it that you want to have as your tone.  This really needs to be pretty short, 25 seconds or so.

When you have found the part of the song you want, write down the start and stop times of that part of it. Right-Click the song to Get Info. Click on the options tab. Type in the start time of your ringtone in the box (as seen in the image) for the field Start Time, using minutes and seconds format.

Then type in the end time as well, it needs to be less than 40 seconds. Once you have entered that, click ok. Now right click your song again and select the option to convert selection to AAC. iTunes will convert your song. It basically duplicates that song in the correct format.

*Note: If you don’t have this option when you right click, you have to have AAC selected as your Import method of choice. So, in OS X you can find this under Preferences ->General Tab->Import Settings->Import Using AAC Encoder. Solved!

Now right-click it, choose Show in Finder so you know where it is, and then right click it again in iTunes (not your opened folder) and delete your song / music track, but be sure that you Keep Files, and not delete from your computer.

Now go to that file that we found using Show in Finder. (If you closed the window it is normally in your User folder, then Music > iTunes > iTunes Music, then the folder where  the groups name will be etc. It is a file with the extension of m4a.

Rename this file’s extension to m4r. You can just click in the file name and enter it there, or click it once and click Get Info and enter in the extension there.

Once you enter the change it will ask you to confirm that this is what you want to do. YES it is! So choose Use .m4r as the option.

Then just double click the file that you just changed, it is now a ringtone file so iTunes will add it to your ringtones folder in iTunes.

Now connect that awesome iPhone to sync it!

If it isn’t working, try renaming back to .m4a and then try it again. Also I found I had to be sure my iPhone wasn’t connected to start with, so I ended up doing it twice, so leave your device not connected until its ready.

Choosing it as your ringtone on your iPhone

Ok- I’ll just wiz through activating it as your ringtone, but I’m sure this is old news.  Once it is sync’d with your iPhone, then just go to your Settings on the phone, choose Sounds > Ringtone

And select your masterpiece!

Good luck have fun!

Love to hear what loops and sounds you made!

3 Responses to “Create a Ringtone”

1. Andrew Peltzer says:

   December 15, 2009 at 3:52 pm

   A very nice niche blog, and a good design there sparks Simplicity yet complex algorithm of the internet. Thank You
2. CMoz says:

   July 3, 2009 at 7:17 am

   Cool! Hope you try it and make yourself a unique ringtone.
3. Carter says:

   July 3, 2009 at 6:36 am

   Neat trick! I love it!

Additional comments powered by BackType