In my previous tutorial I covered how to create ringtones using a Mac. Today I’ll cover creating ringtones using a PC and only free applications such as audacity. Download and install audacity and iTunes on your PC prior to doing this. I’m also using Vista but the same or similar screens exist for XP.

1. Open the piece of music or sound that you want to be your ring tone in Audacity and edit it down to under 40 seconds.

2. Go to File>Export and export the song as MP3. Audacity does not have the ability to export to AAC.

3. Give the file a unique name and save as .MP3

4. Once you have saved it you’ll next need to open the file in iTunes. Right click on the file and choose Open With>iTunes

5. Now that it is in iTunes you can convert it to iTunes native mp4 or AAC. Right click the file and choose Convert Selection to AAC

6. Now we need to rename this file to a ringtone format so browse to your iTunes music folder - in most cases its your default windows music folder.

7. By default windows Vista does not show file extensions. You’ll need to turn this off. Go to Tools>Folder Options. Un-check Hide extensions for known file types.

8. Once you have done this you should be able to change the file name to .m4r

9. Choose Yes that you are aware your computer will explode if you change the file extension.

10. Right click on the file and choose to open with> and choose iTunes.

11. Once you open it up in iTunes you should see it is now in its ringtone category. And you’re good.

Update: some of you have commented that you can’t move the song over to the iPod after it is created. You get a message like “unable to find file” others have had no problems.

First off when you get a message like that it is telling you something important. Try finding the location of where the file is supposed to be. Reimport it. Also you might verify that you renamed the file correctly by opening a command prompt and look at it in dos.

This is an article about how to create custom ringtones for the iPhone or iPhone 3g for capturing movie quotes or music from a DVD using a Mac. I’ll follow up later with one specifically for PC. This article assumes that you know a few things about how to setup itunes, audio hijack, and the built in DVD software. I also use Sound Studio Pro but Audacity will work too.  *disclaimer I am not suggesting creating copyrighted ring tones - that would be wrong…

1. Launch Audio Hijack Pro and select your DVD player then click the Hijack button.  Play your movie, click on record during the part of the movie that you wish to sample.

Audio Hijack

2. Open the sampled audio that you have recorded in Sound Studio Pro, or Audacity and edit it to get the amount of spoken word or music to under 40 seconds.

Sound Studio Pro

3. In sound Studio you’ll next go to File>Save As>  give the file a unique name

Choose File Format of AAC (m4a)
Choose a Bit Rate, I usually go with 112 or 96kpbs.
Click Save

Saving in Sound Studio Pro

4. Now that you have saved the file you need to change it to an iTunes recognizable format for ringtones. To do this, simply right click the file and choose Get Info.

Get info of file

5. Where it says Name & Extension you want to change the extension from .m4a to .m4r

Change File Extension

6. You’ll receive a warning that says “Are you sure…” Click the Use .m4r because yes, you are sure.

Use .m4r

7. The last step, right click again on your file and choose to open with iTunes.  This should put the file (if you have itunes auto-copying) in your ring tones section.

Open with iTunes

8. As you can see in my ringtones is my new sample.  When I sync up my iPhone it will automatically be transferred as long as I have ringtones selected to transfer.

Voila

If you have questions post a comment.