Making your own ringtones in iTunes

Following are two ways to make ringtones. One, is through iTunes, the other is through GarageBand, which will only benefit Mac and iPhone users.

If you have an iPhone, or if your phone supports MP3 ringtones, then you can use the following instructions to create your own using iTunes. It requires a bit of patience to fine tune, but worth it. If you have an iPhone, you'll need the M4R format and will need to do something a little different.

First, select the audio file or song you want to use. Right click, go into Get Info (Cmd+I on the Mac) and go to Options. From there you can select the start and end times of the song you're on. This is formatted as so: 1:23.456. So, 1 minute, 23 seconds, plus .456 of the next second. You can be as simple as 1:23 or if you're nit picky, you can go as far as 2 or 3 decimal points after the second. I don't think the human ear can handle anything more precise.

Now, if you have a Blackberry or similar device that supports MP3 ringtones, you will need to make sure your import preferences are set to MP3. Go into your Preferences > Advanced > Importing and select MP3 from the dropdown. Select a lower quality, 128 kbps would do. It's a ringtone, it doesn't need to be that high, but if you prefer higher, then sure.

If you have an iPhone, you will need to make sure the AAC setting is selected, and not MP3.

Go back to iTunes, right click and select Convert to (selected format here). Find your file, and adjust the name so you don't confuse it with the song. Out of iTunes, find it in your library on your HD and move it somewhere else in a separate folder, away from your music, to keep it tidy. If you have an iPhone you will need to rename the extension from *.m4a to *.m4r. Put it on your phone, however you do that. If you have the iPhone, you can do it through iTunes.

Go back to the original audio file and uncheck the start/end times boxes so that you can play it normally (no need to erase the numbers there), and delete the ringtone file from your library to avoid clutter.

If you are crunched for space on your iPhone and you have a Mac, you can make your ringtone in GarageBand, which will greatly impact the size and in turn the quality. This makes it an M4R file, so no need to change the extension. It's still quite decent but it's not great. Then again, it's a ringtone. Useful if you want to use the space on your iPhone for more important things than ringtones. Once you've cropped the song to the way you want it, go into Share > Send ringtone to iTunes. Then from there, you can directly drag and drop it into your iPhone.

Now you have your own personal ringtone, made by you!

EDIT: I made this post a while ago. "Convert to AAC" will now show "Create AAC Version."