How to create ringtones for free for your phone
21 September 2005
No matter what your favorite song happens to be this week, you can make it a ringtone for your phone for free. All you need is the hit song, a piece of computer software that can turn audio CDs into digital music, a phone that can play MP3 or MIDI music and this guide.
Older phones could only beep simple, monotonous ringtones, and you had to buy and download every new tune from a commercial service. Fortunately, phones have developed into devices that let you snap photos, send and receive email messages, listen to MP3 music and have full songs as ringtones. You can still buy your ringtones from service providers, but it is also possible to make your own ringtones for free.
Before you start creating your own ringtones, check the following:
- Ensure your phone can play polyphonic MIDI ringtones, or MP3 songs. If this is unfamiliar territory for you, this article about music phones should help you.
- You have access to the hit song: the best source for music is your own CD collection, or music that you have downloaded from online shops on the Internet. If you already have plenty of music on your computer in non-MP3 format, you may have to run it through software, such as dBpowerAMP Music Converter to turn it into MP3.
- Computer software that can extract music from CDs. Popular and comprehensive software packages that let you extract music from CDs, download songs from online shops and organize them all into a music library are: Musicmatch, Windows Media Player, iTunes and Realplayer. Those computer users who favor small software products designed for one particular task only, can try applications such as Audiograbber (extracts songs from CDs), Cdex (extracts songs and can shorten them as well) and Winamp (plays MP3).
- If your phone can't play MP3, you may still be able to use MIDI music as your ringtone. You have to find tunes on the Internet, or you can use MIDI software on your computer to create your own. You can't, however, simply record MIDI tunes from a CD or radio. MIDI software products worth trying out are, for example, Anvil Studio and Mobile Music Polyphonic.
How to turn your favorite song into an MP3 ringtone:
1. Insert your music CD into the computer and launch the software that you are using to extract songs from CDs.
2. Find recording options in the software and ensure it is set to record in MP3. For example, Windows Media Player saves music from CDs in WMA format by default, but you should change it to MP3 for better compatibility with phones and portable audio players.
- Changing the music format to MP3 in Windows Media Player.
3. If you are going to listen to the music on your computer, or on a portable music player later on, save the music in high-quality MP3. Set the compression ratio or audio quality to at least 128Kbps. If this music is intended for your phone only, you can specify lower quality, higher compression ratio to save memory on the phone.
- Adjusting the compression ratio (and audio quality and file size) in Musicmatch.
4. Digital music takes plenty of storage space and phones have limited memory space, unless you have a large capacity memory card on your phone. Yet, there's one trick that allows you to have a library of MP3 ringtones even in a small memory space: you can cut songs. For example, you can clip the intro or chorus away from the rest of a song, save the clipped portion only, and you have a 10 second ringtone that won't take much space. You'll need software like CDex to slice a song and turn it into an MP3.
- Clipping a song in CDex.
5. Copy the new ringtone from the computer to your phone using the phone's memory card. If it's not possible to use a memory card, use software that came with the phone, Bluetooth, or a cable to copy the ringtone.
Not all phones can play MP3 music, but most phones can play polyphonic tunes, or MIDI music. You can test if your phone can play MIDI by downloading a sample tune. Here's what you have to do to get free MIDI ringtones on your phone:
1. Find the MIDI tune you want to hear as your new ringtone. You can start your search on the Internet. For example, synthesized MIDI tunes of classical music and old songs, whose copyrights have expired, can often be found and downloaded from the Internet for free.
2. If you are musically talented, you can use MIDI software on your computer to create a ringtone of your own. It is also possible to modify MIDI tunes that you have found on the Internet and recreate something new out if it.
3. Copy the new ringtone from your computer to your phone using the phone's memory card. If there's no memory card on your phone, try sync software that came with the phone, Bluetooth, or a cable to copy music.
What could be more humiliating than having your phone's factory-set default ringtone announce to the world what a relic you are. Please join the fun with your true music ringtones, but since large parts of the world have already enjoyed years of Karaoke entertainment and certain songs have become more than familiar to us and our fellow-citizens, we kindly ask you not to set "My Way" as your ringtone.
Related stories:
What your ringtone reveals about you
How to copy ringtones, music and pictures from a computer to your phone
ramy nadem 03.02.2007 11:14
ramy nade
IMRAN 18.05.2007 12:04
please send us mobile tones and account software i am waiting for your email thanking you imran abdul aziz
Bob 20.05.2007 21:53
well you can get the song onto your phone this way but it still doesnt explain how to make that mp3 on the phone into a ringtone.
Gato 10.08.2007 12:32
Create a ringtone from your music online and for free at http://www.makeownringtone.com
tricia 19.12.2007 23:06
I hope this works!
marybell pagan 23.02.2008 17:36
please sent me my tone
mixer 26.02.2008 01:10
myxer tones makes ringtones from MP3s
joe 11.03.2008 07:11
i'll just ask where i could download an application which allows you to digest mp3 memories into smaller... Do you know anything about that? Thanks...
kelly 12.03.2008 10:16
joe.. I've been using my friend's Ringtone Maker software that lets us cut and mix songs into smaller chunks.
ove l 18.03.2008 02:02
I'm using http://letstalk.mobicious.com/ for making ringtones out of my mp3s.
Eman 18.06.2008 23:28
i hope this works!
rafik 09.08.2008 12:19 guru
Hi i am rafik
question 20.12.2008 19:08
after clipping the song and everything, i used bluetooth to send it to my phone. it plays fine as a music file, but i cannot set it as a tone. is that just my phone or is there something i need to do to fix this?
dhawee 23.12.2008 09:44
hi
kkoii 02.03.2009 09:29 kkk
hi bittch
pradeep 04.06.2010 05:33 up
sdf
B.HARI GOPAL 18.08.2010 05:47
sir, i have htc touch diamond mobile. while i am trying to tab with my stylus or finger, the word which i am tabbing is not appearing the next word is appearing . so, please help me. i am waiting for your message