Since Apple was good enough to "break" their fix for creating free ringtones in iTunes 7.5, I figured I would go ahead and type up a quick how-to on creating your own ringtone. The trick is that you need to pick a file that is 30 seconds long or less. 30 seconds is plenty since your phone won't play any more than that anyway ... not to mention that iTunes won't transfer the song if it is over 30 seconds using this method. So now the problem is getting your hands on a 30 second clip from a song. Sure you could buy some nice little program or use a tool like Audacity to trim off a segment. But honestly, you can just use what is in front of you ... iTunes itself. I'll show you really quick how to make a 30 second clip in iTunes and then tell you what to do with that to make it a ringtone.
First off, you need to go into your iTunes preferences and make sure that you have the AAC converter turned on. To check, go into the iTunes preferences and click on the 'Advanced' tab. Click the 'Importing' tab and under 'Import Using' should say 'AAC Encoder'.
It's all set right? Sweet! Now pick a song that you want to get a 30 second clip from. Right click on the song and select 'Get Info' from the menu.
Just for simplicity sake, lets just say that you want the first 30 seconds of the song. You will click on the 'Options' tab and change the Start and Stop time. Click the checkboxes and change the Stop time to 0:30. Feel free to use any 30 second segment that you wish. Just note the start time and add 30 seconds to it for the stop time.
The hard part is done! Now just exit out of the 'Get Info' screen and right click on the song that you just modified and select 'Convert Selection to AAC' from the menu. Let iTunes work it's magic.
You will get a second song in your iTunes library ... but it will only be 30 seconds long! You can right click and select 'Get Info' and change some tags to make it easier to find in your iTunes library. I like to change the artist and genre to 'Ringtones' so that I know right where to find it.
Exit iTunes. Locate the file in your iTunes music directory and rename the .m4a extension to .m4r.
Once you have renamed the file, just double click on it so that it adds itself to your iTunes library again ... but this time as a ringtone!! iTunes will launch, and the ringtone you just created will appear in the Ringtones list. If for some reason you are having an issue with this the first time, you might want to check in your iTunes preferences and see if you have the “Keep iTunes Music Folder Organized” option checked. Having that checked will automatically create a ringtone folder for you.
An alternative to the double click method is to simply open iTunes, open your ringtones library and then drag the .m4r file from windows explorer or finder (on mac) into the ringtone library. Either method should work.
A lot easier than it seems. Let's see how long this lasts for. Maybe apple will realize they made a "mistake". Let's hope that it is just an effort to keep the masses happy. I for one make most of my ringtones from movie quotes. Can't do that with the official 99 cent way. Keep rockin' ding dongs!
- Q&A with Head Honcho (aka "I followed your steps but ...")
- Q: I try to sync, but I get multiple versions of the same ringtone. What's the deal?
- 1. On the iPhone summary tab, uncheck the box for "Manually manage music and video"
2. On the iPhone Ringtones tab, check the box for "Sync Ringtones" and the radio button for "All Ringtones".
3. Sync ... your ringtones should be there.
- Q: I have made a ringtone, but when I sync, it is not on the iPhone. Does that suck or what?
- Yeah ... it does. Make sure that you have entries for Name, Artist and Album supplied for the ringtone. Doesn't have to be correct ... it just has to be there.
- Q: I try and sync, but I get a message that says that I can't play this song on my iPhone.
- This is probably due to the version of the firmware that you have and the version of iTunes that you are using. Try upgrading iPhone firware and iTunes to the latest versions or both.
- Q: I try to use an M4P file and it tells me that it is protected. What is that all about?
- Sorry, the file is protected ... nothing you can do about that. You can either find a piece of software that will strip the protection ... OR ... burn the song to a CD and then reimport it into iTunes as an AAC file.
- Q: I can't see any file extensions. What do I do?
- Windows users:
Open your windows explorer and select Tools-->Folder Options from the menu. Click on the View tab and uncheck the box that says "Hide extensions for known file types". Then click the "Apply to All Folders" button at the top of the screen.
Mac users:
Open finder and select song. Right click and select 'Get Info'. Under the Name and Extension segment, uncheck the box that says 'Hide Extension'. Extension is also visible there at all times, so you can always just edit on the spot.
*** UPDATE ***
For those of you that are experiencing a "worked the first time, but not the next" problem, Jonah posted a comment on how to get around the issue. It sounds like a good solution, so I'm incorporating it into the article here. Thanks Jonah!
"I think I found a fix. I did everything according to your directions (including the space before the extension). When I double click to get the m4r file, it still goes to the library and not the ringtone file. But, what I learned is, highlight the 30 second m4r file that isn't going to ringtone and is in your library and delete it. A message will come up asking, "Do you want to move the selected songs to the Trash, or keep them in the iTunes Music folder?" Click "Keep Files." Then go back and look in the folder and you will see the m4r file still there. Double click on it again and this time it will work. It has worked everytime."**** UPDATE!!! ****This process still works in iTunes 7.6.
Also this continues to work in iTunes 7.7 and iPhone 2.0!!!
So keep on rockin' it yo!
**** ANOTHER UPDATE!!! ****For those people that are using iTunes 7.6 with iPhone 1.1.3 and are having issues with the sync, I tweaked my steps a little based on Jonah's comments and some forum postings I found. Poster Beegs then was gracious enough to tweak those steps ever so slightly and it works fine for him now. Here are those steps:
My original steps for 7.6/1.1.3
1. Under Edit-->Preferences-->Advanced, check the boxes for "Keep iTunes music folder organized" and "Copy files to iTunes music folder when adding to library"
2. Follow my steps on creating the 30 second clip and converting to AAC.
3. Delete the newly created AAC file from the iTunes library. Do NOT move the file to the trash.
4. Find the file in your iTunes music directory and move it to your desktop.
5. Rename the file extension from myringtone.m4a to myringtone.m4r (substitute 'myringtone' for whatever you want the ringtone called).
6. Double click on the .m4r file.
7. When iTunes comes back on screen, look in the iPhone ringtones tab to verify that the file is there (Do not sync!)
8. Find the file again in your iTunes Music/Ringtones Directory.
9. Rename the file from myringtone.m4r to myringtone.m4a
10. Sync
Beeg's steps that he says works for him
1. Under Edit-->Preferences-->Advanced, check the boxes for "Keep iTunes music folder organized" and "Copy files to iTunes music folder when adding to library"
2. Follow my steps on creating the 30 second clip and converting to AAC.
3. Delete the newly created AAC file from the iTunes library. Do NOT move the file to the trash.
4. Exit iTunes
5. Find the file in your iTunes music directory and move it to your desktop.
6. Rename the file extension from myringtone.m4a to myringtone.m4r (substitute 'myringtone' for whatever you want the ringtone called).
7. Double click on the .m4r file.
8. When iTunes comes back on screen, look in the iPhone ringtones tab to verify that the file is there
9. Sync
