Creating Your Own iPhone Ringtones
iPhone ringtones are a fun way to customize your iPhone. Instead of paying 99 cents for each ringtone you want, there are two ways to get ringtones. A 16-step process with GarageBand to create your own and using one of the simpler programs to do the same thing.
Lets get into what, exactly, can be used as a ringtone. Music files, of course, are mostly used by people for ringtones, especially if you are a professional person who uses their phone for work and play. You can make your own sound bites, such as the birds chirping outside of your window, your child saying, Daddy, your phone is ringing, or something like a sound bite from your early days in the high school band. You can also use the sound from movie files. The choices are limitless.
Customized iPhone ringtones seems to be the big thing for iPhone users. Of course everyone knows how hot iPhones are. So many users want to add contact-customized ringtones. If a specific contact calls, a ringtone set for that contact will ring. It’s pretty awesome.
If your father is a big country music fan, you can have one of his favorite songs as a ringtone for when he calls you. You might have a brother-in-law who is a big football fan, so you can set up the NFL tune for him. You can, for example, have the Married with Children theme song play for your sister and her family if they remind you of them. Get creative with them and have some fun.
There are two ways to create ringtones for your iPhone. I call this the hard way. With it you can use Apples GarageBand to make your own ringtone.
1) Start up iTunes and GarageBand on your Mac.
2) In iTunes, select the tune that you want to grab.
3) In GarageBand, create a New Music Project. You can do this either by closing an open project and then clicking the Create New Music Project button on the GarageBand splash screen, or by selecting New from the File menu.
4) A timeline of a single track is shown in GarageBand. You’ll want to delete this track. To accomplish this, select the track and click “Delete Track” from the “Track” menu at the top of GarageBand.
5) Click the music file you want within iTunes and drag it into GarageBand. You’ll see it’s quickly imported.
6) Listen to the song and pick out a short segment to be your ringtone.
7) We’re going to remove the sections of the music before and after the clip we’ve selected. Click the track and this will select it. Click Split under “Edit” at the top menu. This will break the file from the point where your mouse is. Then click on the portion of the file you want to delete. Delete it. And repeat for the end of the ringtone.
9) With your mouse, yank the remaining clip to the left starting place of the track.
10) About a half-second or so into the beginning of the track, click the volume line to create an end point. Next, click and drag the beginning of the volume line down to zero volume.
11) Do the same thing for the end part of the ringtone.
12) Time to preview. Play it. Does it sound good? If so, save it.
13) Toggle the button that turns the cycle region on and off. It’s on the bottom, far right. It’s a button that looks like a set of arrows.
14) When you click that button, a bright yellow line appears above your track. Drag the right side of the line so that it matches the length of your ringtone. Save your project again.
15) Now send the file to iTunes. To do this, click “Share”, then “Send Ringtone to iTunes.” Instantly it’s converted and sent to iTunes.
16) Sync your iPhone and your ringtone will be copied for you.
I know this seems hard. If you’d like something easier, check out PocketMac RingtoneStudio for iPhone. It handles everything for you.
Related posts:
Posted on Aug 26 2009 in Communications