Create Your Own Ringtones Offline By Joel Coleman



Making your own ringtones when you have no Internet access, or really slow Internet access can be tricky, but it's not impossible. In this article, I'll show you how.



First, there are a few thing to be aware of:
  • You will need Internet access temporarily to download some software, but if you're reading this article off the Internet, I'm going to assume that's not a problem.
  • You'll have to transfer the ringtones to your phone from a computer, via a USB cable, bluetooth, a memory card, etc.
  • The program I'm going to show you how to use can only make MP3, WAV, and OGG files. If your phone won't play those formats, you'll have to find and download a separate conversion tool.
To get started you'll need to download and install 2 free programs: "Audacity" and "LAME for Audacity". (I wrote these instructions using Audacity 1.2.6. If you are using a different version, the steps may differ.)
  1. Go to audacity.sourceforge.net and click "Download Audacity 1.2.6".
  2. Select your operating system, click the "Audacity 1.2.6 installer" and download the file.
  3. Go back to the download page from step 2 and click the "LAME MP3 encoder" link.
  4. Click the "LAME Download Page" link.
  5. a. For Windows, download the "Lame_v3.98.2_for_Audacity_on_Windows.exe" file. b. For Mac, download the "Lame_Library_v3.98.2_for_Audacity_on_OSX.dmg" file.
  6. Install Audacity, then install the LAME file you downloaded.
  7. Open Audacity and click "File > Open" then select your source file. (If you've used either of the online tools from part 2 of this article, this should look familiar.)
  8. Click the approximate starting point of the ringtone you want to create, and drag to the approximate end point. This will highlight the selected section. You can click and drag the beginning and end points to change your selection. You can also press the play button to listen to the highlighted section.
  9. (optional) If you want to add effects to the highlighted section, you can do so by selecting one from the "Effects" menu.
  10. Once you're happy with your selection and effects, click "Edit > Copy".
  11. Click "File > New". This will open a new blank window.
  12. In that new window, click "Edit > Paste". You can press play and make sure it still sounds right.
  13. Click "Edit > Preferences" then select the "File Formats" tab.
  14. (Note: you only have to do this step the first time you use Audacity. After that it will remember where the LAME library is. If you've already done this step once, skip to step 15.) In the section labeled "MP3 Export Setup" click the "Find Library" button. A message will pop up, click "Yes" then browse to the location where you installed LAME in step 6. (The Windows default location is: "C:Program FilesLame for Audacity". The Mac default location is "/usr/local/lib/audacity")
  15. In the section labeled "MP3 Export Setup", select the desired quality from the "bitrate" drop-down. Click "OK".
  16. Click "File > Export as MP3" and select a location to save the mobile ringtone.
  17. Use your phone software or memory card to transfer the file to your phone.
  18. Select the file you created to be your ringtone, in your phone settings.
That's all there is to it. But the only way you're going to find out how much fun it can be is to try it yourself. So go ahead and try it!
Joel Coleman loves to teach people about gadgets of all kinds and also writes articles for a site about ringtones.

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