Make Your Own Custom Cell Phone Ringtones

[wevsspot]

Here is a tutorial on using Audacity to create your own custom cell phone ringtones and then using Microsoft ActiveSync for getting them over to your phone. The tutorial is broken into two parts.

 

Part one explains how to create your custom ringtone using Audacity version 1.2.6

 

Part two explains how to use Microsoft Active Sync+Windows Mobile 5.0 for getting the ringtone over to your phone.

 

First you will need to download and install Audacity version 1.2.6, it is open source, free and can be found here;

 

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/windows

 

Download and run the Windows Audacity 1.2.6 Installer. After Audacity is installed you'll still need a couple of things from the web to complete this project. You will need to download and install the Lame MP3 Encoder Binaries, they can be found here;

 

http://lame.buanzo.com.ar/

 

Download the .zip file and extract the files to your desktop. Open up the extracted folder and you will find a .dll file named "lame_enc.dll" You need to save this file in a location you'll remember because you will be prompted for it's location a little later on in the process.

 

Now, navigate back to this page http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/windows and download the LADSPA Plug-Ins. After you download the Plug-Ins run the installer and then reboot your computer.

 

 

PART 1

 

Open up Audacity and start a new project by left clicking on the Project tab in the upper toolbar.

 

 

Then select Import Audio.

 

 

Now browse to the folder containing the MP3 file you'd like to import and select the MP3.

 

[wevsspot]

Audacity will import your MP3 file and you'll have a graphical representation of your MP3 file that looks like this. Here you need to expand the toolbar by left clicking on the upside down triangle. We need to do a couple of things here with the toolbar expanded so remember how you opened it up.

 

 

The first thing is to split the stereo tracks into left hand and right hand tracks by clicking on the Split Stereo Track button.

 

 

After the tracks are split you'll see a graphical representation of your left track on top and your right track on the bottom. Now we need to delete the right track by clicking on the "X" beside the right track.

 

 

After you have deleted the right track, your new graph will look like this. Here we can set the gain (volume) of the MP3 clip we are going to produce. I've found on most phones that a gain of +9dB is suitable for a ring tone without having to constantly change your ringtone volume.

 

[wevsspot]

Now, left click on that upside triangle again and set the mode to mono.

 

 

And set the Sample Format to 24-bit.

 

[eelemus]

kool workup.....thanx....i use motorola phone tools to transfer music to my phone and chop custom ringtones. the only thing i dont like about what i am using is that it has a limit on the mp3 size it can chop up.....not really sure what the size limit is, but i have only hit it a couple times while chopping many many many ringtones. ....will have to give this a try...thanx

[wevsspot]

Use the hand tool in Audacity to select the range of music you want in your ringtone. You can start at the beginning, at the end, or anywhere in between. Just click and drag. You can use the time bar at the top of Audacity for an approximation of how long the clip will be.

 

 

Once you've selected your music clip we need to open up the Effects toolbar and select "normalize". This will help keep your ringtone volume at a constant level instead of barely audible or totally blasting depending on the acoustic range of your music clip.

 

 

Once you've selected "normalize" you will get a confirmation message that looks like this. It's ok to leave everything here just like it is.

 

 

Now we are ready to export our MP3 clip. Left click on the File button and select "Export Selection as MP3". The first time you do this you will get a message from Audacity that it can't export MP3 because it needs the lame_enc.dll that we downloaded earlier, it will ask you where the file is located and you'll need to point it to that folder

 

[wevsspot]

Choose a file location and save your new Ringtone.

 

 

 

This concludes Part 1 of the tutorial. Part 2 is WIP.

[wevsspot]

PART 2

 

If you have a cell phone that includes a Windows Mobile operating system you can use the Microsoft Active Sync application to easily sync. files between your PC and your mobile device. Active Sync allows you to transfer individual files or folders between your PC and your device, and even re-arrange the location of files on your device.

 

You can download a copy of Active Sync from here;

 

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/act...nc/default.mspx

 

If you're lucky enough not to have Windows Mobile on any of your devices, there are also third party applications that will allow you to export files from your PC over to your mobile device. Part two of this tutorial will cover using Windows Mobile+Active Sync since these are the programs that work on my Samsung phones and the only ones I'm familiar with using.

 

Download and install MS ActiveSync on your PC. Follow the instructions for syncronization of your device. Once you've created the connection between your computer and mobile device it's a fairly painless process for moving your MP3 file over to the device.

 

Open ActiveSync and explore the contents of your device. We need to find out where your device is storing ringtones. On my Samsung phone ringtones and other alarm tones are stored in the My Documents Folder

 

 

Here you can see what it looks like when I'm exploring the contents of the My Documents Folder on my phone. You can see the Arkansas.MP3-drm ringtone that I paid for and downloaded, as well as the custom ringtone I created with Audacity.

 

 

Leave the ActiveSync Explorer Window open and use Windows Explorer to navigate to the MP3 clip that you created and saved to your computer. At this point it's a simple copy and paste from your PC over to the mobile device.

 

[wevsspot]

Using your device menu, navigate to the menu for changing your ringtone. If all has went well, you will see your MP3 clip as an available ringtone. Just select it and check out your new custom ringtone, created absolutely free with sounds or music that you dig.

 

If I can answer any questions feel free to post them here or PM me. If anyone finds a technical error I've made, please point it out and I will correct it.

 

I hope this tutorial is helpful and that you enjoy the results.

[wevsspot]

kool workup.....thanx....i use motorola phone tools to transfer music to my phone and chop custom ringtones. the only thing i dont like about what i am using is that it has a limit on the mp3 size it can chop up.....not really sure what the size limit is, but i have only hit it a couple times while chopping many many many ringtones. ....will have to give this a try...thanx

 

Thank you E,

 

Please be kind enough to delete your post in the middle of the tutorial and add it to the end if you wish.

 

Thanks.

[AnUnknownSource]

cool workup wev!

 

be careful though... next they'll be telling us that playing a copyrighted song as your ringtone in public is copyright infringement and they'll fine you $20,000 (I'm feeling a bit bitter todoy, don't mind me...)

[wevsspot]

cool workup wev!

 

be careful though... next they'll be telling us that playing a copyrighted song as your ringtone in public is copyright infringement and they'll fine you $20,000 (I'm feeling a bit bitter todoy, don't mind me...)

 

Ya,

 

Maybe I should have started with a disclaimer . . . You must be the original owner of the music tracks used to create a ringtone. Ringtones cannot be played in public venues or within hearing distance of anyone but yourself

[AnUnknownSource]

lol now you're covered

 

edit: no wait... NOW you're covered:

 

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