How to make custom ring tones

What you will need

• A phone that can accept custom (non-drm) mp3 ring tones (check here if not sure)
• Audacity
• Lame MP3 encoder
• Software to manage the files on your phone if it can't do bluetooth or USB Mass Storage
• Either a data transfer cable for your phone or a bluetooth phone with a bluetooth adapter in your pc/laptop

Get set up

Install Audacity - Just run the exe you downloaded
Install Lame - Unzip and remember where you unzipped it, as you will need that later
Install any software you need to transfer files to your phone's memory

Create the ringtone

Run Audacity.

Open the mp3 you'd like to make a ringtone from using File - Open on the toolbar.

(The base file display in audacity)

Often times you don't want the beginning of the song as the beginning of the ringtone. There are many songs that have a much better chorus, or have a long intro you don't care about. Play through the song by hitting play or the space bar and when you've found the spot that you'd like as the start, stop the song and click there to put the cursor on that spot. Now highlight that spot by clicking down and dragging the shaded area all the way to the left. After that, go to Edit up on the toolbar then Delete to clear that song portion.

(Selecting and deleting the introduction)

Most phones can only play 15 to 30 seconds of the song before the call goes to voicemail. I generally try to make about a 30 second ringtone. Find the spot that you'd like to have as the end and highlight from there until the end of the song on the far right. Again, go to Edit on the toolbar and then Delete to clear the ending portion that you don't want.

(Selecting and deleting the end)

Most songs are recorded for better fidelity on a pair of good speakers, but since our phones have tiny tin-can sounding speakers, we don't care as much about that. We just want it to be loud enough to hear. This part is best done by looking and listening. Look at the wave representation to see if most of the density of sound is below the middle line. If it is, you may want to bring it up a bit. While you can try to set a compressor to do this, I've found that clipping is almost inaudible on most phones. Just go up to Effect on the toolbar, then Amplify. I try using 2 or 3 decibels at a time until I find the loudest volume that doesn't sound too distorted. Make sure to check on "allow clipping".

(The amplify effect)

(Setting the amplify options)

For the finishing touch, you can apply a fade out to your ringtone by highlighting the last few seconds then clicking Effects on the toolbar and then Fade Out.

(The fade out effect)

Use File - Export to save your mp3 somewhere you're familiar with so that you can transfer it to your phone later. Creating a folder called "ringtones" under "My Music" might not be a bad idea. Name your file and then select MP3 as the filetype to save as. Click on the options button. You will want to set a low bitrate such as 64kbps so that the file doesn't take up too much space in your phone's memory. The first time you save, it will ask you where lame.dll is located. Just point it to the directory you installed lame into when you first set everything up. It only ever asks for this once.

(Export)

(Export and MP3 options)

Get it on the phone

There are so many different phones with so many different methods of transferring files that's it's not feasible for me to list all of the specifics here, but I can go over the 3 general methods.

1) USB Mass Storage - This is a setting you can enable in many phones that use a USB cable to connect. It allows you to drop files directly on to the memory card via the USB connection. Enable it, connect your phone, let the drivers install and under "My Computer" you will find a new drive letter. If you double click on it, you may see a set of folders or sometimes nothing at all. Drag and drop using this and you should be all set.

2) Bluetooth - If you're transferred files via bluetooth before this should be no problem, but if you haven't, you will need to activate bluetooth on your phone and set your phone to "discoverable." On the PC/Laptop, you send the file via bluetooth often time by right clicking on the file or using the little bluetooth icon in the system tray. You will need to enter a shared key (just make up a number) on both devices to transfer. After the transfer is complete, the file should be in the music or sounds section of your phone.

3) Proprietary software - Almost all phones have this option. It's generally downloadable or on a CD that came with your phone. Install it and connect the phone using the cable they provided when you bought it. If you have problems at this point you will have to consult their help.

Problems

DRM. It's an evil thing. Many carriers put DRM (Digital Rights Management) on their phones that makes it so that your phone can only get ringtones from their site. This prevents you from putting your own ringtones on your phone, which is perfectly legal if you bought the mp3 or CD you got the song from. There are workarounds for many phones, including changing the file extension (3gp for some samsung phones) or sending the tone to yourself via MMS. If you're getting strange errors trying to transfer the ringtone to your phone, search around on the web a bit to find out if it's DRM that's stopping you and if there is a workaround to it.