Making Ringtones for your iPhone.

As an avid PC user, it's always difficult trying to find programs that work the way I want them to, especially when it comes with importing things into iTunes.  Such things include importing videos to fit the dimensions of your iDevice, removing restrictions on certain songs, and worst of all, ringtones.  After messing around, I have compiled the steps that are needed to create any ringtone of your desire.


What you'll need:

• iTunes (duh)
• An audio editor (there are many freeware applications, such as Audacity.  My personal favorite is GoldWave.  There is a free trial with this program, but you'll have to pay for a license [or illegally obtain a key code :P])
• iPhone of any model

Instructions:

1. First, open up iTunes and pick out a song that you want to edit.

I'm a big FFXIII fan, so I'll choose this song, "Blinded by Light."
2.  Next, open up your audio editor and drag the song onto the application.

If only I could make this my ENTIRE ringtone...
3. Trim the segment that you'd like to hear as a ringtone.  For iPhone users, the limit is 30 seconds.

What better snippet to use than the main melody of the entire game?
4. As soon as you're done, save the segment as an MP3.  Now, open up iTunes again and drag the song into your library.  To make sure we do the conversion right, we will make sure that the settings are correct.  In iTunes, Go to Edit and click Preferences.... Within the middle of the window, there should be a setting that says When you insert a CD, and the Import Settings button should be to the right of it.  Click that button and make sure that the import setting is on AAC Encoder, as shown below:
5. Now, right-click on your media file, and click Create AAC Version.  After iTunes chugs its engines, it'll spit out a new file with the same metadata, except its new extension is .m4a!  Now, drag this file out of iTunes and onto your desktop. Make sure your extensions are visible (to do this, open up Windows Explorer, click on Organize on the top left corner, and click Folder and search options. Then click on the View tab, and uncheck "Hide extensions for known file types.")  Right-click on the file, and click Rename.  Change the .m4a extension to m4r (r for ringtone).  You'll get some pesky error message saying:

In this case, it will not render the file unusable.  Click yes.  Now, drag this under your iTunes library, specifically under Ringtones.  The file should show up!  Now all that's left is to sync your phone, and voila! You have a custom-made ringtone for your iDevice!

Now, I'm sure there are programs that are out there that allow you to create ringtones with easier steps; however, I have found that these programs are typically shareware, and/or they produce inadequate sound quality (by means of doing some weird converion process from mp3 directly to m4r).  So, this is the easiest method I have created that will produce high-quality ringtones on Windows machines.  Of course, Macs have it easy since this is right up their alley, and converting mp3 to m4r is a breeze with GarageBand.

Have you found other ways to make ringtones?  Send me your ideas!

Until next time,

Corey