Create Your Own Ringtones - A Step-By-Step Guide

Why pay for ringtones when you can create them yourself? Your ringtone, like your clothes and hairstyle, represents your individuality. It tells people what kind of person you are, whether you are bland and blah, or unique and interesting. This article will teach you how to make your own ringtones with five ringtone-maker tools, which are absolutely free and can make it really easy for you to express yourself through music. Explore and find out which tool you like best. Personally, I like to use Razz and Audacity the most.

This is probably the most simple way to create your ringtones, great for those of you who are not very computer savvy, or have a computer that is slow for uploading and downloading files. Most cell phones nowadays have the "voice recorder" option, which is usually in either the Media or Office folder. The following instruction can be used with most Nokia phones. If your phone is not Nokia but has a voice recording application, you can still use this method as a guideline; the procedure shouldn't be much different.

1. Go to the Media folder.
2. Choose "Voice Recorder"
3. Play the music, which you'd like to convert into a ringtone, on your computer, CD or MP3 player.
4. Place your cell phone very close to your source of music and start recording. The louder you play the music, the better. Otherwise, the sound quality of the ringtone could be very low.
5. Once you get the clip you want, press "stop".
6. Go to Recording List
7. Choose the clip you just recorded.
8. Press "option" and choose "Use Tone"
9. Choose "Set as Ringtone." Done!

Audiko allows you to upload music from your library, or direct the site to a URL where it exists, clip the part you like and then download it to your cell phone or blog. It takes only 3 easy steps:

1. Upload your favorite song from your computer or enter a YouTube video URL, and Audiko will extract the sound from it.
2. Once it finishes uploading, a ringtone-maker tool (see picture above) will pop up. It doesn't look too complicated, does it? You can try dragging the blue clip marker to different parts of the song and listen to them, until you find the section you'd like to use. The clip can be about 20 seconds maximum. Click "create your ringtone," name it and save it as an MP3 file.
3. Download the ringtone to your phone (using a USB connection), or if you want to put it on your blog, Audiko will provide you an html code.

Audiko, moreover, has a language tool application, allowing you to read the website in five other languages, besides English. If you have any suggestions or questions, there is also an Audiko-user forum you can join.

Tonebee is very similar to Audiko, but Tonebee allows you to upload an MP3 only. It does not extract sounds from videos. As for its ringtone making method, it basically takes the same 3 steps: upload, snip and download. Here are detailed instructions on how to create a ringtone with Tonebee:

1. After clicking "make your ring tone," press "load" to access the MP3 library on your computer. This popup screen will appear. Find the song you want and click "open". Upon loading your MP3, ToneBee will generate the waveform for the song and try to extract details of the song using its ID3 tags. In case your MP3 doesn't have its ID3 tags, a "Song Fingerprint" indicator with a red X next to it will appear on the bottom right corner, meaning that the song has not been identified. If this happens, you will need to search for the song by entering relevant details in the Song and Artist name fields, then press "search" and click on the search result that matches the song you want to use.

2. When it's done downloading, use the orange clip marker tool to select the part of the song you like and click "save". (You can click on the "play" button to play the whole song, or press the "play selection" button to play only the portion of the song you have selected.)

3. Transfer your new ringtone to your phone, using a USB connection.

Razz can help you create ringtones that are fascinatingly original and fun by combining your own voice or your favorite lines from movies with music. Here is how it works:

1. Select a theme song from a movie you like. Razz has a bunch of cool theme songs for you to choose from. Some of the awesome ones are Pulp Fiction, Austin Powers, Anchorman and Borat!
2. Click "add voice". You can either use Razz recording tool to record your own voice or select some cool lines from the movie you have chosen. For example, I chose the Pulp Fiction theme song and added Samuel Jackson's bad-ass lines from the movie to the song. (It begins with the sound of a gunshot and then he says "Oh, I'm sorry. Did I break your concentration?")
3. Click "record" and then "save."
4. Enter your cell phone number, type of phone you use (Nokia, Panasonic, Samsung, etc.) and the name of your carrier (AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, etc). Then Razz will send you a url link to your new ringtone in a text message.
5. You can also post your Razz ringtone on your MySpace page or Facebook by clicking on the "publish" button. Razz will provide you a one-click publishing widget, which has support for the majority of social networking sites. If you don't see your favorite social networking site on the list, you can always copy the embed code and paste it where you like.
6. Last but not least, every Razz ringtone has a unique buddy code for you to give to your friends in case you'd like to share it. All they have to do is go to Razz website and enter the code into the Buddy Code box, then they will be able to download your ringtone with no hassle.

What mobile carriers does Razz support for Razz Tones?

In the U.S. - AT&T, Cellular One, T-Mobile and Sprint.

In the U.K. - O2, Orange, T-Mobile, Three, and Vodafone.

This method could be a bit complicated, but I will try to make it sound as simple as I can.

1. Rip the song you want from a CD (See "Some Easy Ways to Rip CDs" below) as a digital music file: WAV (Windows) or AIFF (Mac). Save it on your hard drive.
2. Download Audacity Sound Editor software to your computer. It is free!
3. Before Audacity can export audio to an MP3 ringtone format, you will also need to download the LAME library, which is an MP3 audio-compression software.
4. Run Audacity. Go to the Audacity/Preferences menu, and click the Find Library button.
5. Navigate to the LAME Library on your hard drive, and select it.
6. Now go to Audacity's File menu, select "open" and find the song you ripped for your ringtone.
7. Clip the part you want for your ringtone and save it, or personalize it with some audio effects Audacity provides.
8. Download the MP3 ringtone to your phone, by using Bluetooth or a USB connection.

1. Use Microsoft Windows Media Player 10 - Insert an audio CD and click "rip". Select the songs you want to rip and click "rip music". The first time you rip music, the program will ask you whether you want to change the current format settings or keep them. You can change the format, sound quality, and download location of your ripped music files, or you can keep the default settings. If you don't have time to do that right way, you can always change the settings later. Click "ok" and the songs will be ripped to your Windows Media Player library.

2. Use iTunes - Open iTunes and go to the Edit > Preferences menu. Select "Advance". In the Advance menu, select the "Importing" sub-tab. In the Import Using field, click "MP3 Encoder." Then go to the setting menu, set iTunes to rip in the format and sound quality (192kpbs recommended) you want. Insert an audio CD into your computer. iTunes will scan the CD and download available track information from the Internet (if you're connected). After scanning, it will display the title of the CD and list of audio tracks. Select the songs you want and click "Import CD". When the ripping process is completed, the audio tracks will be automatically saved in your iTunes Library.

1. Usher Featuring Young Jeezy: Love This Club
2. Flo Rida Featuring T-Pain : Low
3. Ray J and Yung Berg : Sexy Can I
4. Mariah Carey : Touch My Body
5. Rick Ross Featuring T-Pain : The Boss
6. Jordan Sparks Duet with Chris Brown : No Air

7. Leona Lewis : Bleeding Love

8. Chris Brown : With You

9. Webbie, Lil' Phat & Lil' Boosie : Independent

10. 2 Pistols Featuring T-Pain & Tay Dizm : She Got it

1. Girls Aloud : Long Hot Summer
2. Daniel Powter : Bad Day
3. Peter Kayne VS. Tony Christie : Is This The Way to Amarillo
4. Adele : Chasing Pavements
5. Welsh National Anthem
6. Sugababes : Push The Button
7. Lynard Skynard : Sweet Home Alabama
8. Westlife : You Raise Me Up
9. Pussycat Dolls and Busta Rhymes : Don't Cha
10. Rhianna : Don't Stop The Music