Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Making iPhone ringtones from MP3s

1. Start iTunes and find the song you want to convert. (It must be an MP3.)
2. Right-click the song and choose Get Info.
3. Click the Options tab.
4. Check the Start Time and Stop Time boxes, then enter times for each (no more than 30 seconds apart, the maximum length for a ringtone). I used 0:00 and 0:30, respectively, as "Spit It Out" has a perfect ascending lead-in.
5. Click OK, then right-click the song again and choose Create AAC Version. You should immediately see a new 30-second version of the song. You need to make your import settings are set for AAC (I normally leave them as MP3).
6. Drag that version out of iTunes and into the folder of your choice.
7. Delete the 30-second version from iTunes and undo the Start Time/Stop Time changes to the original.
8. Open the folder containing the 30-second AAC file you dragged out of iTunes, then change the file extension from .m4a to .m4r. Double-click it and it immediately gets added to iTunes' ringtone library.
9. Finally, sync your iPhone. When it's done, you can head into the settings and select your new ringtone.

Couple of gems; Spanish Flea and Hawaii 5-0