$1.29 Can’t Buy Me Love, but it will get me the ringtone

on February 22, 2012

Apple and EMI announced that the iTunes store is exclusively selling ringtones from The Beatles for $1.29 each. The 30-second tones are from the The Beatles no. 1 hits album called 1, which represent the 27 top Beatles tunes in the U.S. and UK.

Screencast: How to Create iPhone Ringtones for Free

on January 19, 2011

One of the best things about the iPhone is how easily you can set your own custom ringtones. Creating those ringtones from music from your own library is incredibly easy, too, and doesn’t require any paid third-party software. All you need is Garage Band and iTunes.

What SMS Marketers Can Learn From the Ringtone Space

on November 14, 2009

A group of 14 mobile-content companies agreed last week to pay as much as $63 million to settle an Illinois class-action lawsuit after a group of consumers claimed they were billed for ringtones and games they thought were free. Meanwhile, halfway around the world in Australia, Vodafone was fined $110,000 after an SMS marketing campaign may have breached anti-spam laws. While the two events are unrelated, both are developments that players in the SMS advertising space should take to heart.

How-To: Create iPhone Ringtones in Garageband

Tom Reestman on October 30, 2008

If you own an iPhone and a Mac you can easily create ringtones within Garageband. I love music, but am not a music maker, so I don’t really use Garageband at all. Luckily, you don’t have to know much of anything about the program to easily create ringtones for your iPhone. Trust me. If I can do it, so can you, and I’ll show you how now.

Prerequisites

Before proceeding, make sure the following are true: 

  • You have the latest version of iTunes (from iLife ’08) and it is currently patched. If you bought your Mac after about August of 2007 and keep your software up to date, then you’ll qualify. If you don’t have Garageband, check out this method for creating ringtones.
  • You must use music that is not inhibited by DRM. If you have iTunes Plus music from iTunes, or MP3 files from Amazon.com or eMusic.com, or of course any files you’ve ripped from your own CDs, these all qualify. 

OK, with those out of the way let’s make a ringtone…
Read More about How-To: Create iPhone Ringtones in Garageband

Free Custom iPhone Ringtones Using Only iTunes

Jenny Kortina on August 7, 2008

Create free ringtones for your iPhone using only iTunes and songs you already have on your computer (This method only works with songs that are DRM free. To create ringtones using DRM protected songs please use this method). This method has been tested and works with iTunes 7.7.1 and iPhone 2.0.1 firmware.

To create custom ringtones using only iTunes:

  1. Right click on the song you are going to make into a ringer and select “Get Info.”
  2. Go to the options tab and go down to the “Start Time” and “Stop Time” check boxes. Check both boxes and input the time you want your ringer to start/stop. The ringer has to be 30 seconds or less. Click OK when you’re done.
  3. Right click on your newly “clipped” song and select “Convert Selection to AAC.” The song will be re-encoded using the start and stop times determined (If your menu item does not read “Convert Selection to AAC” and reads “Convert Slection to MP3” (or some other format) please go to iTunes > Preferences > Advanced > Importing and change the “Import Using” drop down menu to “AAC Encoder”).

  4. After the song is done encoding navigate to your iTunes Music folder, locate your song, and drag it to your desktop. After the song is on your desktop go back to iTunes and delete the clipped version from you iTunes library (It won’t delete it from your desktop, it will only remove it from iTunes).
  5. Go back the song on your desktop and right click on your song and chose “Get info.” Go to the name and extension section and change the extension from .m4a to .m4r (or you can just change the extension right from your desktop)
  6. After the extension is changed simply double click on the file to add it to your iTunes library under the ringtones section. Sync your phone with iTunes and you’re done!

Remember to go back into iTunes and uncheck your custom start and stop times for the original version of your song.

Other Ringtone Posts

Here are a few other posts about creating ringtones for your iPhone that you might find interesting.