omg wait how do you get a ringtone onto an iphone with the new itunes update? i tried to set it as this mashup of something and it didnt work :(
Hi Lovely!
Okay, so in the old iTunes, I used to have a folder synced on my computer so that when I added a new ringtone, I just plopped it in there and it updated whenever I plugged in my phone. For some asinine reason, Apple decided that was too easy and decided to hide how to put on a new ringtone.
When I did mine recently, I found this website here very helpful; I’ll simplify it for you, so that I also have the instructions and I can add my own again without googling how to do it LOL.
Okay, so I’ll go from start to finish, since I always make my own ringtones. For this tutorial, you will need Audacity, which you can download for free here (always support open source programs! <3). Audacity also requires a plug-in to convert audio files to MP3; it’s also free and instructions on how to install it are here.
NOTE: You CAN also make ringtones in iTunes, I just prefer to do it in Audacity because you can be a lot more precise on the length and the Start-Stop positions and play with the audio; in iTunes you need to know EXACTLY the start stop times. The initial tutorial website shows you step by step how to make a ringtone using iTunes, so you can do that if installing and prepping programs is a bit daunting for you! I always have the most difficult way possible to do anything, but if you’re willing to put the time in, it’s also the most fun :D
Either way, remember that the most IDEAL RINGTONES are between 20 and 30 seconds; the longest you can make one for iPhone is I THINK 45 seconds.
If you want to just make the ringtone, skip to Section B: Adding the Ringtone in iTunes.
NOTE YOU NEED TO HAVE AN UPDATED iOS FOR THIS TO WORK. I am running iOS 11.0.3 on my iPhone 6S Plus.
Okay so here we go!
A. Making Your Ringtone Using Audacity
1. Choose your song; it can be any song, as long as it’s a format supported by Audacity (FLAC, WAV, AAC, and MP3 I know for sure. I believe it supports all kinds of audio files). Right click, and choose “Open With > Audacity”.
2. So now you’ll see a waveform in Audacity. If you’re not familiar with audio editing, it can look very scary!:
BUT it’s useful for finding the part you want to make a ringtone, and is a lot more precise, because you can see where all the downbeats are in your song! As well, Audacity’s save function works like Photoshop PSD files: it saves all the layers you make of your clip, so if you want to make a mashup of a bunch of songs, you can totally do that too! Clip out the section you want to be your tone. It will require you to play with the audio sample. Remember: try to keep your clipping under 30 seconds! Audacity has a lot of fun features like tone shifting, fades and speed adjustment, so if you want a really unique ringtone, you can adjust the octave of the song or you can have fade-outs. If you’re really ambitious play with it so it makes a perfect loop!
ANYWAY. So clip out your chunk and make sure it’s what you think you want for a ringtone and that it’s clipped and edited the way you want it, and it’s under 30 seconds.
Now go to FILE > EXPORT AUDIO (Shift-CMD-E). If you’ve loaded the LAME encoder correctly, you should see MP3 as an option:
These are the settings I use for all my MP3 output. Save your MP3 in a temporary spot; you won’t need it again and can delete it after you make your Tone.
3. Now we will open up the MP3 in iTunes. Double click on the file to open it and then find it in your playlist. What we’re going to do now is Import the song from iTunes into an AAC file. To do this, you need to change the Import Options in iTunes. It took me a bit to find them since they got moved around a bit. Go to iTunes > Preferences (CMD-Comma), and you will be shown the “General Tab”; at the bottom, you will see a button for “Import Settings”; click on it.
And on the dropdown menu, make sure that “AAC Encoder” is selected. I think it’s the default, but double check. As an aside, if you rip CD’s, this is where you change it so they save as MP3′s, not M4A’s (which is what AAC’s will make).
4. So now that we’ve ensured that it is the proper format, we’re going to Convert the MP3.
Go to FILE > CONVERT > CREATE AAC Version. This will make a duplicate version underneath the one you have.
Right-click on the second file, and “Show in Finder” (or the Windows equivalent to showing you the file location). This will bring up the file’s location on your computer. For ease, pull it out of the folder, and put it onto your desktop, then delete any folders it created. Go back to iTunes and delete from your library both the MP3 and the duplicate file, as you won’t need them anymore.
5. Now we’re going to Change the File’s extension. For this step, you need to make sure your computer is set to show file extensions. In Windows, this setting is under “Appearance and Preferences” I think, and on Mac it’s shown by default for files on the desktop, I believe (if not, it’s under FINDER > Preferences > Advanced > Show Extensions).
Change the file extension to *.m4r. Click on “change to *.m4r” when prompted.
B. Adding the Ringtone in iTunes
Now, the next part is the frustrating bit, because ALL the tutorials I found wasn’t clear on the syncing aspect of this. A lot of them essentially told me to turn off all my syncing, which, uh, NO because I have a tonne of music and if you de-sync your playlists, it deletes them from the device. So NO. So I’m going to show you MY sync settings, and show you that as long as you have certain boxes unchecked, you can still add your ringtone.
1. First make sure your iPhone / Pod / Pad / Whatever is hooked up somehow to your computer. BLUETOOTH SYNCING DOES WORK FOR THIS; mine does Bluetooth Syncing (which is the greatest thing ever). You’ll know iTunes found it if it shows up as a little icon on the top and it shows up under “Devices”
2. Set your sync settings. This is is done by clicking on the little iPhone Icon at the top there. You will see this:
Under options, make sure that the “Sync only checked songs and videos” box is UNCHECKED. This will NOT affect your music syncing, as far as I know, because my music stayed synced.
Other tutorials tell you that “Manually manage music and videos” also needs to be checked. IT DOESN’T. Clicking it will eff with your music sync settings, and I was perfectly able to add a tone with it unchecked.
3. Go back to the main sidebar by clicking on the arrow at the top. iTunes will prompt you if you want to Apply changes; hit yes if you did any changes, otherwise cancel.
Click on the drop down arrow next to your Device, so it brings up several options.
If you click on Tones, you can see all of the manual ringtones you have on your phone. In my case, because I have “manually manage your music and videos” deselected, mine are greyed out, so I can’t delete them unless I turn on that checkbox.
4. Drag and Drop your ringtone onto the device. THE BLUE HIGHLIGHTING MUST SHOW UP ON THE DEVICE FOR IT TO WORK, like so:
Even if you have your syncing on, you will see it add itself to your Tones folder. It will take a few seconds, since this is being added DIRECTLY onto the device! A checkmark will show up next to it when it’s completely synced and on the device.
5. Change your tone! Now that we see it has been confirmed to have been moved onto the device, let’s load it up! On your phone, go to your Settings App. Scroll down to “Sounds”, then tap on “Ringtone”. On the Ringtone page, select your newly-added tone; Tapping on it will activate it and you can listen to it in its entirety!
To set it, all you need is that checkmark next to it, and click on the “< Sounds” text at the top-left. The text in the Ringtone section of the Sounds should now say the name of your new ringtone!
Et voila!
I hope that helped you out, Nonny! And to everyone else, I exclusively use a Mac, so I don’t know if this is interchangeable at all with a PC. I don’t have a PC so I can’t help you out beyond my limited knowledge of it. The tutorial I linked to WAY up top goes to one that has Windows OS, so that should help you out a bit.
Cheers all!
