Many mobile phone users quickly find that the cost to purchase new ringtones can quickly become prohibitive. These same people will many times have music libraries that have songs suitable to convert to ringtones. As a result, finding a convenient method to convert songs to ringtones can save consumers money and help them enjoy their favorite artists without paying additional money to iTunes or other music brokers for a processed ringtone created from the same music. The iTunes multi-media player can be used to create ringtones for use on iDevices and freeware, shareware, or commercial software products can accomplish the task for other mobile phones.

How to Convert Songs to Ringtones ( iPhone)

Step 1 – Start the iTunes application on your computer by double clicking the program icon on the computer’s desktop or by selecting from the “Program Files” sub-menu of the “Start” menu.

Step 2 – Select a music track in the iTunes library by single clicking the song name.

Step 3 – Listen to the song and identify the starting point of the song to use for converting to a ringtone. The iPhone supports ringtones that last between 0 and 35 seconds in length. You may have to listen to the song multiple times to identify the start and stop point of the track to use for ringtone creation.

Step 4 – Right click the music track and then choose the “Get Info” menu option. Enter the start and stop times on the subsequently displayed menu to use for the ringtone.

Step 5 – Right click the music track and then pick the “Create an AAC “ on the subsequently displayed menu. On older versions of iTunes, you will need to select “Advanced,” and “Create AAC” menu options to conduct the task.
How to Convert Songs to Ringtones
Step 6 – Right click the newly created files and then pick the “Show in Explorer” menu option.

Step 7 – Rename the file to have a “.M4R” file extension. Then, delete the AAC file remaining in the iTunes library.

Step 8 – Drag the file with the .m4r extension to the iTunes desktop to load into the iTunes library. The new ringtone can now be moved to an iPhone that is connected to your computer.

Make Ringtones Using Third Party Software

There are a number of third party applications on the market that can be used to create ringtones from existing music files. The steps to convert songs to ringtones are similar across applications; however, the GoldWave program is used for the following steps.

Step 1 – Download and install the GoldWave application on your computer. After installation is complete, launch the program.

Step 2 – Select the “Open” menu option on the GoldWave toolbar or use the built-in File Chooser to locate the song to convert to a ringtone.

Step 3 – Manipulate the GoldWave control menu to listen to the full track and then identify the section of the song to convert to a ringtone.

Step 4 – Right click the location of the song to start the ringtone. Then, choose the menu option to “Save Start Marker” to record the position.

Step 5 – Right click the section of the song to complete the ringtone creation and then click the “Finish” menu button. Pick the “Trim” menu button to remove sections of the song that are not desired to include as the ringtone.

Step 6 – Select the “File” and “Save As” menu options to save the new ringtone and complete the conversion.