How To: Custom iPhone Ringtones

posted by Andy

Today's class will cover how to turn any of your audio files into an iPhone ring tone using iTunes, followed by a test worth 50 points. Apple can't seem to convince their laywers that this is a good feature, so it may not work in past or future versions of iTunes. Here's what you need:

• iTunes (tested in v7.7.0.43)
• iPhone (tested on 1st gen model, v2.0.2)

Overview:

1. Set start and stops for the file
2. Convert to AAC
3. Rename the extension as .m4r
   

Songs that make good ringtones tend to be the more obnoxious ones in your collection, something you can hear in a crowd, and that happen to contain a memerable riff you can loop.

Step 1. Start and Stop Points

Chances are, you don't want the whole song to play as your ringtone. Let's clip that sucker down to the jucy parts. But first, set iTunes to loop the song. This will simulate what you'll hear when the phone rings. Click the "repeat" button until a little (1) appears.



Now, play your file and watch the time code number. Note the number where you'd like to start and stop your ringtone. A rough number is fine for now.



Next, we'll put in some temporary start and stop times. Right-click on the song and choose "Get Info" from the menu choices.



Select the Options tab and add your start and stop numbers.



Click "OK" and play back the song in iTunes. The song should loop back to the beginning. If the timing isn't quite right just rinse and repeat:

1. Get Info
2. Adjust time settings
3. Play

You can also enter fractions of a second, like 0:30.75

Step 2: Convert to Ringtone

In this step we'll encode the shortened section into an Apple rintone file (m4r). First, make sure iTunes is set to encode as AAC files. Go to the Edit menu and choose Preferences (Ctrl+comma). Then click the Advanced tab at the top, and Importing sub-section.



Check that Import Using is set to AAC Encoder.

Now, back to the audio file. Right-click on it again, and choose Convert Selection to AAC.



Did you notice the option just below this: Create Ringtone. That only works for Music Store songs, ugh!

At this point you may want to filter your songs to only show the one you're working with. Use the search option in the upper right to reduce the playlist.



You should see 2 copies of the same file, each with different times. Right-click on the one with the shorter time (your converted file) and choose Show in Windows Explorer (or similar option).

Change the file extension from m4a to m4r.


Can't see the 3 letter file extension? Try one of these.

You now have a ringtone file. Double-clicking it will add it to your ringtones playlist.

Step 3: Cleanup

Now that you've screwed up some iTunes settings and left junk files around, here's a checklist of items you may want to set back the way they were:

• Turn off Repeat One Song. Click the button in the bottom left corner.
  
• Turn off the Start and Stop time for the original song. Select the song and choose Get Info.
• Delete the old converted file, it'll probably show up as missing anyway. See above.
  
• Change encoding from AAC. Why encourage vendor lock-in? Switch your import format to something standard, like MP3. Look under Preferences > Advanced > Importing.