How to Make Ringtones

Making ringtones used to be less flexible. Although the capability for ring tones to be sent directly to your phone from your subscription data service plan has been available for some time, you were always stuck with what the phone company decided to send you. And ordering ringtones was almost as expensive as ordering full-length songs from online music services.

Phone and computer technology have progressed a lot since those days. Today's phones can take any MP3 file and use it as a ringtone. You can use almost any song you want, making your customized ringtone as unique as you want it to be.

How to Make RingtonesSpend time in a crowded shopping mall, and you'll agree that no two ringing cell phones sound the same. People see their phones as a way of expressing their individuality, and technology has made it easy for them to do so.

If you have a little bit of technical know-how, making your own ringtones is a piece of cake. You'll need a few things before you get started:

Getting Music

Once you have these things ready, it's time to make your own custom ringtone. If the songs you have in mind for this project are already on your computer, this process becomes easier. If not, you'll have to purchase the MP3 from your favorite online music store. These days, a typical song costs less than a dollar online, so there's little reason not to get it through appropriate, legal means.

Once the song is ready to go, it's time to edit. Today's phones are more flexible on how long you're ringtone can be, but it's still not practical to have one that's longer than 30 seconds. Since the average song is between three and four minutes in length, pick your favorite part, and do a little splicing.

Editing Your Selection

Audacity is an open-source piece of sound editing software that offers a ton of functionality, and will do everything you could want to do as an amateur sound editor. It's perfect for making MP3 ring tones, and it's a free download.

Audacity does not come with MP3 capabilities built-in, which is why you'll need the plug-in in order to import and export the correct files. Once you've installed Audacity, and the LAME MP3 plugin, you'll see how easy splicing audio is.

Open the sound editing software, and find the "Import" option at the top. A dialog box will come up that lays out all the files and folders on your computer.

Find your chosen song selection, and the software will then load it into the editing studio. Audacity will lay the entire song out in the form of visualized sound wave, allowing you to copy, cut, or paste as you see fit.

From here all you have to do is find the 30-second selection you decided on before, and cut out everything else. What you're left with will be your ringtone.

Go back up to the menu, and select the option to "Export" your new file as an MP3.

Choose a place to save it on your hard drive, and your new ring tone is finished and ready to use.

Loading Files to Your Phone

The only thing that's left to do is to load onto your phone. How you do this will depend on the type of phone you have. If your phone is capable of e-mail reception, then it might be easiest to send it that way from your computer.

You can e-mail it to yourself, and it will show up on your phone. This is perfect if you're using a smartphone, such as a Blackberry.

If not, then Bluetooth may be an option, since many laptops come equipped with it just like many of the newer phone models.

If neither of those methods are an option, you may have to opt for the USB data cable that probably came with your phone. While that's a little more of a hassle, and least it will work. The point is to get your new MP3 file onto your phone one way or another.

Once your ringtone is loaded on your phone, you're finished. The only step left is to go into your phone's options, and set your homemade ringtone as your chosen selection. Now, every time your phone goes off, your friends will be asking you where you got that tone from. It's too bad for them, you'll know it's not available in stores.

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