How to Make Your Own Music Ringtones

Today's cell phones have many great features that you can customize to fit your personality. You no longer have to hear the same built-in ringtones when someone calls you. If you have a phone that can play custom MP3s, you can choose almost any music for your ringtone. Once you have picked your favorite song, you will need some tools to convert the song to the format that your phone can play.

Things You'll Need

• Audio-editing software

Instructions

1. Choose audio-editing software. If you don't mind spending a few minutes downloading audio software, Life Hacker recommends using the free Audacity software. It has excellent compression and conversion options that make it a good pick for beginners and intermediate users.

2. Choose an MP3 track from your collection or a song from a CD, if desired. Copy the track to a new folder so that you don't lose your original version by accident. Convert music on a CD to WAV format, using any software that you choose. Wired magazine recommends using the iTunes program to rip the song from your CD, since you can tell iTunes to save the copied track as a WAV file, before the process begins.

3. Download the LAME file compression codec for Audacity. Save it on your hard drive in a location that you can easily remember.

4. Load the LAME codec into your copy of Audacity. Open Audacity and select the Edit menu. Choose Preferences, then select Find Library. Choose the location on your hard drive where you saved the LAME file. Select it with your cursor to upload it into Audacity.

5. Load the copy of your song into Audacity. Choose Open in the File menu and locate the song on your hard drive. Highlight it and click to open it. Audacity displays the track as a bar that goes from left to right, from the beginning of the song to the end. You only need 10 to 15 seconds of the track for a ringtone.

6. Edit your song. You can choose any portion of your song, by clicking on a section you want to use and highlighting it. Use the Zoom icon to display the soundtrack in 5-second intervals. This will make it easier to highlight a section that is short enough to make your ringtone.

7. Preview your highlighted selection by pressing the space bar. When you are satisfied with your results, open the Edit menu and choose Trim. This saves the selected portion only.

8. Open the File menu. Select Export as MP3. Save your ringtone to your hard drive. Email the ringtone to your phone or copy it to the phone, using a Bluetooth connection or cable.

Resources

• Create free ringtones.
• Make MP3 ringtones.
• LAME codec plugin.