So you bought an iPhone. You’re in love with the phone and all its ninja like features features, but wish you didn’t have to pay for your songs twice to get a ringtone – SUPER LAME! There are plenty of songs in your music library, but no way to make ringtones from any of them. Or is there? Actually, with a little bit of trickery [nothing illegal, of course], you can create custom ringtones from any one of your non-DRM songs in your iTunes library easily and for free.
Note: This should work on both Mac and Windows PCs. =)
Step 1
- Open iTunes.
Step 2
- Find the song that you want to make into a ringtone.
Step 3
- Listen to the song and find the part of it you want to use. The chorus may be a good place to start.
Step 4
- Write down the start and stop times of the clip.
- You can also Edit one of your favorite songs in a music editing program to the exact time beforehand and to add fade in and fade out effects. [Audacity is the program I use and it’s FREE]
Step 5
- Right-click the song and select “Get Info.”
Step 6
- Click the “Options” tab.
Step 7
- Type in the start time of your ringtone in the text box next to “Start Time” in the minutes:seconds (i.e., 2:01) format.
Step 8
- Type in the end time of your ringtone in the text box next to “Stop Time.” Make sure the ringtone is no more than 40 seconds long or it will not work.
Step 9
- Click “OK.”
Step 10
- Right-click your song again and select “Convert Selection to AAC.” Wait for iTunes to convert your song. It will create a duplicate version.
Step 11
- Right-click the ringtone and select “Delete.” [If you do not do it this way, it wont work]
Step 12
- Click on the “Keep Files” button.
Step 13
- Find the file. It’s usually in your User folder under “Music > iTunes > iTunes Music” and under the band’s name. It will have an extension of m4a.
Step 14
- Replace the m4a extension of your ringtone with m4r. You can either double-click slowly to rename your file, or right-click and select “Get Info” on a Mac or “Rename” on a Windows PC.
Step 15
- Click “Use .m4r” or the PC equivalent when the system warns you that the change may affect the use of your file.
Step 16
- Double-click the ringtone file. ITunes will automatically add it to your ringtones folder in your iTunes Music Library.
Step 17
- Connect your iPhone and sync your ringtones.
ENJOY! Hopefully this will work for you!