Want custom ringtones on your iPhone 3G?

[CrazEtooN]

Ok, the iPhone 3G is a pretty damned nice phone when you buy it, but let's face it, the ringtone selection SUCKS. You can always buy ringtone capable songs from iTunes and pay an extra $.99 to snip a 30 second ringtone out of it, but what if you want a movie theme song, a cartoon show theme song from your years as a kid, or some funky sound effects you found on the web?

Here's what you do if you have a Windows machine, or have a 10.4.11 (Tiger) Mac. (If you want to use a full song that isn't 40 seconds or less, you need to find software to crop the section you want. Any Mac can use GarageBand for this, and I am sure there are free Windows solutions as well. To ease the pain of this step, I just download pre-made ringtones in MP3 format and go from there.)

1. Find a ringtone. I personally get all mine from here at CrackBerry.com (it has to be 45 seconds or less)

2. Download the ringtone to your desktop

3. Open iTunes and go to your Preferences (might be called Settings on Windows) > Advanced Tab > Importing sub-tab > Find where it says "Import Using" and set it to AAC encoder.

4. On a Mac, double click it and it will automatically add to your iTunes library and start playing. On a PC, it will most likely open WMP automatically, so just drag it to your iTunes library.

5. Find the rintone you just dragged to your iTunes library and right click it, then select "Convert to AAC."

6. It will create a duplicate of the ringtone in AAC format and should start playing it automatically.

7. Drag the file to your desktop. (Since the new AAC format ringtone starts playing automatically, it will have a speaker next to it, which makes it easy to determine which file you need to drag)

8. Delete the two copies of the ringtone from your general Music list (you don't have to, but I don't think you want ringtones randomly playing next time you do a song shuffle...)

9. See that ringtone you just dragged to your desktop? It should be "songname.m4a." Now, simply change the file extension to .m4r. You can leave the file name alone, or you can make it whatever you want, the important thing is that you change the extension to .m4r.

10. On a Mac, double click it and it will auto add to your Ringtones list in iTunes. On a PC, you may have to manually drag it to the list.

You're done. You now have custom ringtones on your iPhone for free, and they can be whatever sounds you can find... as long as they are shorter than 40 seconds.

I know it looks like a bunch of steps, but it isn't. The whole process takes maybe 30 seconds after you do it once or twice.

[bmcclure937]

Great little walkthru CrazEtooN!! I knew you would be all over the iPhone!!

How is it going for ya?

[CrazEtooN]

So far so good. Got myself a nice gel case thing and screen protector today as a matter of fact... Only downside is it completely covers the white back of the phone... lol.

[bmcclure937]

Originally Posted by CrazEtooN

So far so good. Got myself a nice gel case thing and screen protector today as a matter of fact... Only downside is it completely covers the white back of the phone... lol.

haha. well I am sure you are in love... I would be too!!

Also, if you have a mac with ilife 08 installed...
you can do it this way...

Open garageband (it has to be garageband 08).

Start new music project

Drag the song from your itunes library into Garageband

Here you can make your own ringtone from the song. The process has a lot of wording but quite easy and can be found here...

TUAW Tip: Make iPhone ringtones with GarageBand - The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)

After you are finished there hit "send as ringtone to itunes" and voila there is your brand new ringtone already in the itunes folder.


********

THIS ALSO WORKS WITH RINGTONES YOU MAY ALREADY HAVE FROM CRACKBERRY ETC...

Drag clip into itunes

Open garageband

start new music project

drag in ringtone from itunes to garageband

hit "send as ringtone to itunes"

and it converts automatically and ends up in your ringtones folder!!

I have already transferred successfully all my ringtones from my berry to ringtones folder on itunes, and have also made 5-6 new ones! Now if i only had my iphone (they are telling me my order will be in tomm)

[CrazEtooN]

Yeah, there is that way too.

If you have iLife 08, use ShortStop's walkthrough, it is easier.

If you don't, mine is the easiest you can do (for free anyway).

[chynnamann]

Thanks CrazEtooN I was thinking I would have to shell out for Ringers I barely want since the og ringers sux! I'm back in the game... well until someone can figure out how to change sms, e-mail tunes

[Duvi]

I buy them, but I definitely will use them for this song that iTunes doesn't even have that I love.

Good walk-through guys and gals!

[DeadAim]

Or you could just use myxertones.com for iPhone ringtones. Like I do

[nachtkriechen]

Hey, everyone. Cool site! I just got my 3G last week at the launch.

CrazEtooN,

I followed your walk through, great job, by the way! However, I've run into a problem. I'm on a PC, and everything in your walk through worked fine, until I transferred the files to my iPhone.

The files didn't transfer properly. I have about 100 ringtones I've created, and when I dragged and dropped them into my iPhone in iTunes, they show up as being on my phone in iTunes and will play when I click on them in iTunes, but when I go to assign one of my rings to one of my contacts in my iPhone, all I see in the iPhone directory is ONE of my files entered multiple times. I've clicked on them to make sure, and they're all the same file in the iPhone. I've tried deleting them and transferring them again, and have the same results every time.

Any ideas about what's going on?


Thank you much.



- Josh

[CrazEtooN]

First, make sure they are all in .m4r format. Second, you don't drag them to your iPhone. You need to drag them to the Ringtones section of iTunes, up towards the top where it says Music, TV Shows, Movies, Applications, etc.

If they are all in your iTunes Ringtones section, and they are all less than 40 seconds, they should sync fine and show up under Sounds on your iPhone.

[nachtkriechen]

Progress!! Thank you!

They are all in m4r format. However, in your original post you said "under 45 seconds", so I went through and painstakingly recropped all of my rings down to 44.049 seconds.

I dragged them to the ringtones section you mentioned under the "Library" section, and synced my phone. Only about half of them copied (and I'm very thankful for that half). They all show up in the ringtones section at the top in the "Library", but, when I click on my phone in iTunes, only 46 show up.



- Josh

[CrazEtooN]

The ones that don't show up are probably too long. If a ringtone is too long, it will show up in the iTunes library, but not on the phone. I made a mistake in my first post and I need to correct it... They need to be 40 seconds or less (the actually number is like 43, but just to be safe...).

I truly am sorry for the confusion, and I hope I didn't cause you too much grief on the length thing.

It is corrected now... Sorry again.

[nachtkriechen]

No worries, CrazEtooN. Thanks for all of your help!

The thing is, however, as I mentioned before, I shortened all of my rings to 44.049 seconds, which is why I'm confused as to why only about half of them showed up. It doesna make sense capn'!



- Josh

[CrazEtooN]

I have no clue honestly. Every ringtone I have ever tried to get on my phone has worked like a champ, so I'm not sure what to say. If I come across something that will help, I will be sure to let you know.