How to Make Your Own Ringtones

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 05:19:00 -0400

In this tutorial, We will guide you in the step by step process for making your own MP3 ringtones.

Tools you need:

Cell phone that support MP3 ringtones.
Music CD or MP3 Music File
Any method of transferring the ringtones from computer to phone (USB, Bluetooth, e-mail, instant message, etc.)
Audacity v1.3 beta
Lame v3.96.1
MP3 Converter (to convert audio cd file to mp3 format)

Instructions:

If you plan to create your MP3 ringtones from a CD, rip the song you want as a WAV (Windows) or an AIFF file (Mac). It's a good idea to specify a new ripping location, too, so the ripped song wont be mixed up with the rest of your collection. But if you're creating your ringtones from an MP3 song, you may want to copy that MP3 song into a new folder so that when we edit the MP3 the audio-editing software won't messed up your original MP3 song.

Now, If you don't have any of the above mentioned audio file types you can use your own Audio CD. But, you will need to use a separate software to convert them to MP3, Wave or AIFF. You can also download MP3 songs the Internet.

Once you have chosen the song to edit and converted it to our desired digital music format (whether WAV, AIFF or MP3), run your audio-editing software. In this case we will be using Audacity, it is free, open source and runs on both Mac and PC. If you don't have Audacity you can download a copy of the file here http://audacity.sourceforge.net/.

Also Audacity needs another separate program (actually its called library) for MP3 compression. We will be using Lame, LAME is an MPEG Audio Layer III (MP3) encoder, you can download Lame Library here http://lame.sourceforge.net/. Once your download is complete you need to decompressed the file. Please take note where you decompressed the file.

So once you have all the tools we need, let's start!

Run Audacity, go to Edit/Preferences/File Format menu, and click the “Find Library” button near the bottom of the screen. Navigate to the folder where you decompressed the Lame Library File, and select it. Also set your bit rate to 128 Kbps. You can choose a lower bit rate to save space on your phone, but you'll get lower-quality sound.

Now continue with Audacity, in Audacity's File menu, select Open and find the music you want to create for your MP3 ringtone. It might take some time for Audacity to import your music depending on its size, the location and the speed of your computer. Just be patient!

Once the importing is done, you will see your music laid out from left to right. Click and drag your mouse around until you find the section you want for your MP3 ringtone. You can listen to your selection by pressing the spacebar, just play around until you find the part that you want to make as your MP3 ringtone. You're looking for a phrase of 10 to 15 seconds or so. Once you found what you want for your MP3 ringtone you now go to “File” Menu and click on “Export selection as MP3”.

Audacity comes with several effects; to try them out, leave the ringtone selected in the Audacity window, and then select anything in the Effect menu.Adding these effects is a matter of taste, but I figure it adds a bit of spice to the ringtone and makes it more of an individual statement.

So once all is set and you've finalize your mp3 ringtone, it's time to transfer the ringtone onto your phone. The easiest way to do this is with Bluetooth, assuming you have already paired your computer and cell phone. If your phone came with a USB connection, use that; otherwise, try e-mailing or texting it as an attachment. If you need some info about datacables please go here http://real-ringtones.awardspace.com/datacables.html. Put the mp3 ringtone file into the Audio folder if your phone has one, and then select the new ringtone in your Tools or Options menu. Each brand of phones has a separate way of adding or selecting new ringtones, but this tutorial does not cover that.

So that's it! I hope you enjoy your new MP3 Ringtone!

Ringle.in // Computers & Technology

How to Make Your Own Ringtones