HOWTO: Make your own MP3 ringtones
As I mentioned the other day, I upgraded my cell to a new Moto RAZR V3 with Cingular service. So far I’m extremely pleased with it and it seems to do everything I’d like it to do. Unfortunately, it doesn’t come with a large selection of ringtones. Sure, I could “buy” ringtones, but that just seems silly to me when I can make a ringtone of any song for free.
Here’s one way to do it using Audacity to crop the song, LAME to encode it, and Bluetooth to transfer it to your phone. You just need the following items…
Requirements:
- Cell phone that supports MP3 ringtones
- Bluetooth adapter
- MP3 of the song you want to use
- Windows XP SP2 (see note at end)
If you have those four things, just follow these simple steps and never pay for a ringtone again…
0. Install Bluetooth drivers
I use a D-Link DBT-120 that I picked up a few years back. It currently sells for about $30 on Newegg and works reasonably well. I’m sure other ones would work just as well.
If you have Windows XP SP2 I strongly recommend you use the generic drivers rather than the ones that ship with the device. The Windows drivers are actually a lot easier to use. Just plug it in and Windows will do the rest. You should see a Bluetooth icon in the taskbar notification area if the drivers are installed:
Right-click on the icon and choose Open Bluetooth Settings. Make sure your computer is set to be discoverable (see note on security issues at the end):
Add your phone as a device by right-clicking on the Bluetooth icon and selecting “Add a Bluetooth Device” from the top of the list of actions. This will start the Add Bluetooth Device Wizard:
The exact steps you use to pair your phone with your computer at this point will depend on your specific phone make/model. In most cases you will need to select a PIN.
1. Install LAME
Contrary the recursive acronym, LAME is an open source MPEG-1 audio layer 3 (MP3) encoder. And, potential legal issues aside, it’s a great encoder that is both free as in speech and free as in beer.
Grab the LAME binaries for Windows from one of the mirror sites and unzip the file to somewhere handy. I personally use C:\LAME, but anywhere would work.
2. Install Audacity
Audacity is a free audio recording/editing/mixing application that runs on just about every major OS. The installation is nice and easy. Just grab the Windows installer and run it.
After you have Audacity installed, go to Edit | Preferences | File Formats and click the Find Library button in the MP3 Export Setup section at the bottom:
Browse to the location of the lame_enc.dll file (from Step 2 above) and select it.
You should be all set to encode/re-encode MP3s now.
3. Install RazorLame (Optional)
We all know that real geeks use the CLI. But if you were a real geek you would have already emerged LAME, written a script to batch trim and encode your entire MP3 collection and would have no use for this guide in the first place. That said, there’s nothing wrong with loading a nice, GUI front-end for LAME like RazorLame. If you are using Windows, it does make things a little easier.
Grab RazorLame and unzip it to somewhere useful. Run it and set the location of lame.exe in the options:
That’s it for installing software. Now we can move on to actually making a ringtone.
4. Trim MP3 down to size
In most cases you only need about 30 seconds of audio for a decent ringtone. Anything beyond that is just going to waste precious memory on your phone. To crop the song, we will use Audacity.
Open the MP3 you want to use in Audacity and use the cursor to select about 30 seconds of the audio:
Then Edit | Trim (Control-T) and it will cut off everything that isn’t selected. For more precise trimming, you can now zoom in again and repeat the process.
Next hit File | Export as WAV and save the new file.
5. Re-encode to lower bitrate
Start RazorLame and go to Edit | LAME Options. The key is to drop the quality enough to get the resulting file size to something reasonable. Most places recommend files of less than 108 KB, but I’ve found that (other than Bluetooth transfer times) I have no problems with larger files.
For example, I typically set LAME to encode at 64 Kbps mono with an output sampling frequency of 16 KHz:
Depending on the specific song, I’ve had good luck with everything from 32 Kbps to up 96 Kbps. You’ll have to play around with the settings for a little while if you are very concerned about the file size.
Add the file you created with Audacity by hitting the Add button:
If you have all the encoding settings set, hit the Encode button:
You should now have a new MP3 file that is considerably smaller than the original song file. The sample I used for making this guide worked out to be around 397 KB. Not bad.
6. Transfer file to phone
We’ll assume you have your phone properly configured and paired with your computer at this point.
Right-click the Bluetooth icon in the taskbar and select Send a File, opening the Bluetooth File Transfer Wizard. Select the device to send it to (e.g. “Motorola Phone”):
Select the file you want to send (i.e. the new MP3 file):
Wait for the file to transfer:
Complete the transfer wizard:
That’s it. If you are using a RAZR V3, the song will automatically start playing and you can set it to be your new, default ringtone with one click.
Enjoy!
Notes:
- TMTOWTDI: Please note that at the very beginning I said that this is one way to do it. There are certainly other (better?) ways of getting the same thing accomplished. You could, for example, skip the whole RazorLame step and do the encoding all in Audacity.
- Windows XP Required: No Windows is not required to make ringtones. In fact you could argue that this process is actually easier if you are using Linux (at least in part), and you’d probably be right. In fact, that’s how I do it… with a combination of Windows and Linux and the magic of Samba. But for the purposes of this guide I decided to show how to do it using Windows.
- Bluetooth vs. Cable: Depending on your phone, you could potentially use a cable to transfer the file rather than Bluetooth. I prefer Bluetooth but either way would work.
- Security/Privacy Issues: Yes, I know it’s generally a bad idea to keep your computer set to be discoverable. But in my case I’m using a desktop in a house with a rather large yard. I’m not particularly concerned about people doing nefarious things via Bluetooth (snipers notwithstanding). On the other hand, I probably wouldn’t recommend setting your laptop to be discoverable all the time.
- Paying For Ringtones: I just don’t get it. In a few steps you can have your own (free!) ringtones, and yet people insist on paying $2 or more for each one! Perhaps I’m missing something?
I cannot thank you enough for taking your time to pass on this inforamtion. I just got a Motorola E815 and was googling how to make my own ringtones. Found this article and within 20 minutes had ELO’s “Living Thing” as a ring tone for my wife’s #. It is people like you that make the net a great place.
Thank you so much. best wishes in all your endeavors.
Vann Larimore
vhl@theriver.com
You can also use iTunes instead of Audacity + LAME. I just stumbled across a tutorial for that the other day, and I’ve been making new mp3 ringtones with both my Mac & my PC. (You might add a mention of the Mac to the XP-not-really-required note at the end.)
Whenever I try to send the file to my phone I get the Failure window, which says it was unable to send to the Bluetooth device. Any suggestions on what I may be doing wrong?
@Vann:
Thanks! I’m glad you liked the guide.
@Rich:
Cool. I’m not an Apple/iTunes user, but that is good info for those who are.
@Justin:
Which step gives you an error? What is the exact error message? Are you sure Bluetooth is enabled and turned on at both the PC and phone?
Thank you so much! After about an hour or so of trying to get some software(s) to upload stuff to my phone I almost gave up. Your steps proved to be my saving grace. Thanks.
Also to add, you don’t need any software to upload content to the cell phone! I have a samsung d807 and this helped even me out!
Good guide,one thing though,i have blue tooth already,but the drivers it seems to use do not work……Is there any free ones out there?
(ps)Or a usb driver i cant seem to find one
Thank you so much for this tutorial. I have used several other programs to make ringtones before, seeing as though I have had Motorola phones with Nextel and Nokia phones through Cingular in the past. Like you, I do not understand why anyone would pay for a ringtone. The programs you have provided were all very user-friendly! I appreciate the time and effort you put into this tutorial.
However, I am also having problem sending the mp3 file to my phone. I compressed the files, just as you noted with the RazorLame option. Afterward, I attempted to send the file to my cell phone and as the devices try to send/receive the file, I get an error on the RAZR stating: “Connection Interrupted” and an error on my Laptop stating: “This Bluetooth device or computer cannot process files of this type.”
I would really appreciate any help if you could provide me with any.
I used this tutorial on an unlocked razr v3 and it worked perfectly fine with a Bluespoon Bluetooth v2.0 USB Dongle from Radio Shack. The only difference is that it did NOT start playing afterwards which made me think it didn’t go through but I actually found it in my ringtone list so you may want to mention it may not automatically play or give you the option of storing it on all RAZRs.
The tutorial was great though and it made me decide to not even mess with downloadable ringtones anymore. I like the ability to know EXACTLY what I am paying for and some places don’t give you the ability to try it out. This way I know what is going on my phone and it costs me nothing at all to put it there… plus my ringtones sound a LOT better than ones they charge $2.49 for.
The guide was a lifesaver, and pretty well everything u had in it worked like a charm(except for one). I have a motorola v3c ( Razr) and, instead of using bluetooth, im using a cable connection with mobile phone tools. The files transfer to the phone fine, but the files are sent to the razr’s “sounds”(a branch of the media gallery) and i can’t figure out how to set them as ringtones. Any help would be GREATLY appreciated, thanks.
If anyone knows a good hack to get my razr v3 to take my homemade ringtones from my transflash to the cell drop me a line. ( I did it with my e815 and it worked great) but I need a new hack for the new phone
wings@snipergamez.com
or you can just visit http://www.remixmobile.com – and they do it all for you. Works for me!
O.K….Let me emphasize that I dont wanna pay “anyone” to do what I can do myself.
I did it with the E-815 and if I can find the proper edits for my Razr I’ll do it as well.
You don’t need Bluetooth or a cable to send your homemade ringtones to your cingular RAZR– just use one of those free sites that will text a download link to your phone, and use Go To to access it from your mobile web. Definitely the easiest method, although you pay a little for accessing the internet.
This is an awesome tutorial. I’ve been able to make ringtones for my samsung d807. But my girlfriend has the same phone but its unlocked, and once we send the mp3s to her phone it wont set as a ringtone.
How/can an mp3 be set?
if anyone noes how to download free bluetooth file transfer wizard add me on msn: mario-p@hotmail.co.uk thnx
Wow, thanks for the great tutorial! This beats the three websites I used to have linked that described this process without pictures!
Now if only Verizon let me transfer files to my phone. Oh well, at least I can send the ringtones via the net.
Thanks!
Thanks for the tutorial! It was exactly what I needed.
As a sidenote, if you don’t have bluetooth or mobile phone tools, but you have a webhost, you can probably just upload the songs to the host and then go to the url in your phone and download them to the phone. I did this with my V3 Razr (cingular) with no problem. :) I still have to pay for the bandwidth usage of course, but I had to do that when I downloaded a ringtone from the cingular site too, so no biggie and it didnt’ cost me 2.47 a song to do it!
A previous person sent this in:
The files transfer to the phone fine, but the files are sent to the razr’s “sounds”(a branch of the media gallery) and i can’t figure out how to set them as ringtones. Any help would be GREATLY appreciated, thanks.
This is my situation also! I can get the files on there just fine but it doesn’t seem to have an option to set them as the ringtone. I have a new razr v3t. Anyone have any ideas?
I found out how to do it:
If you have a v3t or v3c:
once you have sent the mp3 over either by bluetooth or the usb cable go to games/apps then go to ‘sounds’. Go to the options for the mp3 you want as the ringtone, and choose copy, then pick copy to the phone. Now the file will show up in your ringtones list (at the end of the list) to select.
okay i have the new samsung stripe the SGH-T329 when i make my ringtones i send them to my phone by a yahoo email to my phone as an a attachment and then i cnat even open the file in my phone what should i do or am i doing something wrong also my phone has bluetooth and its on but when i go to search new devices it doesnt find no devices when theres a bunch of phones wit bluetooth on
I’ve got the razr v3. It recognizes the created tone and I can even listen to it but it wont allow me to set it as my ringtone. Help
Ok, so i don’t use bluetooth technology hooks so this might sound dumb, and i was just seeing if you could help me out…..
I did all the steps and stuff, i use a free upload website and it sends it in a txt messages. But when i receive it, it doesn’t sound clear and when i save it, it saves as a recording, not as a ringtone.
Like i said if any1 knows how to fix this then plz help me out. If not thnx anyways
Thank you so much for the tutorial. I have a problem similar to Justin’s (October 24). I can send files from my phone to my laptop, but have trouble with sending a file from laptop to phone. “File transfer failed because receiving bluetooth device did not respond.” I do not have any problems when sending files from my other pc to my phone. xp sp2. Thank you in advance for you help.
Same here with that set problem. i have a v3m. i can listen to it but it wont go to options or set as a ringtone at all. please anyone tell us how to fix this prob.
Reply to Inmar- my stripe does the same thing- I cant connect to any other bluetooth? did you figure out the problem?
I do not have or want a blue tooth. can I do it with a data cable? I have a cable that works, and I have audacity. What software do I need?
if the songs arent showing up for you in fun and apps then you need to go in there and access a song you can see, pull up the menu and then switch storage device to read from the media card.. hopefully yours songs show up there and you can move them to phone then the are in the ringtone list as stated above, then you can apply them. ^^ gl
FANtastic! I thought this was going to take AWHILE before I found this tutorial and I didn’t believe it until I was done! Worked great on a Moto PEBL. I used a Mac to do this.
First I went to the iTunes preferences, Advanced tab, and Importing sub-tab to set the Import mode to make AIFF files. So when you say OK and right-click (ctrl-click) on any MP3 file, you can choose “Convert to AIFF” and it will make a file you can edit. To get to this AIFF file, just drag it to your desktop and iTunes will make a copy for you.
I fired up Sound Studio to edit my AIFF file… lopped off the end after 35 seconds… and saved the file back to an AIFF format…different name.
Drag this baby back into iTunes. Literally drag it and iTunes will have it. Go back to your Preferences->Advanced->Importing and set it to make MP3s… you want to make a CUSTOM .mp3… I went with 64 kbps, mono, 16.000 khz and got a decent file size. Say OK and then right-click/ctrl-click on your AIFF file to “Convert to MP3.” It will create your 30-second MP3 and you can drag this .mp3 to your desktop.
Now you’re ready to use the Bluetooth connection to get it onto your phone… that transfer took about 5 seconds and in 10 more I had Seger’s “Night Moves” as my ringtone…hahah.
Brilliant! Thanks!
I must be an idiot, because I can’t get Razorlame to work to save my life. It looks for a file that isn’t there, and the components listed on the razorlame website don’t seem to be downloadable, at least not for less than $750. I am by no means great with computers but as far as I can tell Razorlame is not exactly user friendly.
However WinLame is extremely user friendly. Minutes after downloading it, I had a 29 second 432 kb ringtone on my phone.
Thank you for your post. However I did not find Lame.exe (but lame.bat) after unzipping Lame-3.95. Can you help since I replace the directory with lame.bat and it did not work. Thanks.
Thanks for all your time and advice. I have followed your instruction but I am still having problems with locating LAME. I downloaded it, unzipped it and can’t make the darn thing fall in place.
I have a Razor2V9. I can connect my phone with a cable, do I need the bluetooth connection anyway?
I could use some more details…I am still pretty green when it comes to all this….
thank you so much. with this page someone like me can make ring tones now.thanks for posting this,i really appreciate it.
I’m having the same problem as a couple of other people. I can’t find the Lame.exe to put in the RazorLame options
Thanks to Norm, that tip FINALLY got me going. It’s really irritating to have an MP3 player/phone that is intentionally counter-intuitive when it comes to using my MP3s for ring tones. I can’t believe people pay money for ring tones.
anybody wanna help? i got the 2nd generation chocolate from verizon and i can transfer the files fine but it only comes up in my sounds folder and i can’t set it as a ringtone. nor can i do that thing norm said by copying it to phone. any help would be appreciated.
Alright, so I have a Samsung slider phone thing (SGH-A737 to be precise). And this was great. I was so excited. Everything worked perfectly–until I tried to set the file I made as my ringtone. I copied it into the Audio folder with the other ringtones, but it won’t let me set it as a ringtone… I think it might have to do with the format on my phone. My file was, of course, saved as MP3. The other ringtones on my phone end in .mmf . Is there anything I can do?!