How to Make a Song Your Ringtone on iPhone
A custom ringtone can bring a lot of benefits. These include avoiding spam calls, setting special sounds for your loved ones, separating different people with designed ringtones, or expressing yourself with a special sound, etc. If you also want to make your own ringtone but don't know how to do it, just check our guide to get some different ways to make your own ringtones with ease.
Method 1. How to Make a Song a Ringtone without iTunes
For a long time, iTunes used to be the optimal option to create iPhone ringtones, but over time, users get increasingly frustrated by the complex process. As a result, they have to look for an iTunes replacement to create a ringtone. If this is also what you want, there are two easy and quick ways to make a song into a ringtone without iTunes.
Option 1. Use Qiling Ringtone Editor
Qiling Ringtone Editor is a desktop-based iPhone ringtone maker that allows you to create your own unique sound with the song you download from the internet. The process of using this program is very simple. Let's see how to make a ringtone with Qiling Ringtone Editor.
Step 1. Launch Qiling Ringtone Editor on your computer. Next, import the song you want to turn into a ringtone by droping it into this program or browsing your computer to choose it.
Step 2. Then, you'll see the interface below. You can drag the slider to choose your favorite part of the song, and then click "Clip" to proceed. If you don't want to clip your song, you can directly leave this page by clicking "Skip without Clip."
Step 3. After choosing your favorite part, you can make the sound fade in by swiping left to right, or doing the opposite to fade out. If you want to adjust the volume, you can swipe up and down. Once everything gets done, click "Export."
Step 4. From the export options, you can choose to push the ringtone to your computer or your iPhone.
Option 2. Use GarageBand
Another option to make a ringtone is to use GarageBand, a popular ringtone maker app for iPhone that lets you generate your own ringtone without iTunes or a computer. Before getting started, you'll need to download the Garageband app on your device and prepare a song that you wish to make a ringtone from. You can download an MP3 track from Google to the File App or directly use the songs stored in Music Library.
Step 1. Launch GarageBand on your iPhone and swipe your screen until you see the "Audio Recorder" page, choose "Voice" to preceed.
Step 2. Click on the grey icon in the upper left corner (see below).
Step 3. Tap the "Loop" icon from the top right corner of the window. From the drop-down page, you can see "Apple Loops," "Files," and "Music."
Step 4. If you choose "Music," you can browse the songs in Music Library, then drag and drop whatever song you want from the Music Library to the Track screen. If you choose "Files," then you will need to choose "Browse items from the Files app" at the bottom, then drag and drop the one you wish to make a ringtone from to the Tracks screen.
Step 5. In the track screen, tap on the "+" in the upper right corner. Then, you'll come to the "Song Sections" page, choose "Section A," from where you can set the section length by tapping the bars next to the "Manual" option. (40 seconds is the maximum length of a ringtone, and 10 seconds or less is for text tones)
Step 6. Trim the track by tapping and holding the start point of the track, drag it to the place you wish to start. Apply the same procedure to set the stop time. After that, tap on the little arrow icon at the upper left corner to choose "My Songs," where you can see the sound you created.
Step 7. Then, tap and hold the custom song, then select the "Share" option from the list. From the "Share" page, select "Ringtone" and give it a name. Then, tap on "Export."
Step 8. After exporting, you can open your Settings app and set the custom song as your ringtone: Settings > Sounds & Haptics > Ringtone > Tap the custom ringtone to set it as your ringtone.
Method 2. How to Make Ringtones on iTunes
iTunes is the traditional method to make a custom ringtone. It is worth noting that the procedure of using iTunes is a little bit complex, so you'd better handle every step carefully. Before proceeding, make sure you've downloaded the latest version of iTunes on your computer. If everything is ready, follow these steps to generate ringtones with iTunes.
Step 1. Add your wanted songs to the iTunes library
Click the "File" tab in the upper left corner > Choose "Add Files to iTunes Library." If you can't add files to your iTunes library, that means the files are not compatible with your iTunes. This requires you to convert your music files to MP3 formats and then import them to your iTunes library.
Step 2. Play the track and set the time you want it to start and stop
- You can play the track and note the start and end times of the clip you want to make it a ringtone. Remember that the maximum length of a ringtone is 30 seconds.
- After that, choose the "Songs" from the left panel > Right-click the song you wish to set as your ringtone > Song Info > Options > Enter the start and stop times you noted in the available fields, don't forget to check the box next to the start and stop > Click "OK."
Step 3. Create AAC version
- Place your mouse cursor over the original song and select it > Choose "File" > "Convert" > "Create AAC version."
- Then, a new track that has the same name as the original one but with a short length will appear in your iTunes.
Tips: If you can't find "Create AAC Version," you can click "Edit" > "Preference" > "Import Settings" > "AAC Encoder."
Step 4. Find the AAC file and change its extension
- Still in iTunes, right-click the AAC file and choose "Show in Windows Explorer."
- In the Explorer window, right-click the AAC file you created > Choose "Rename" > Change its extension from ".m4a" to ".m4r," which is the Apple ringtone format > Click "Enter."
- Then, you can drag this file to the desktop or any other places you wish to put it.
Note: If you find that you can't edit the file's extensions because you can't see it, you can click the "View" tab on the ribbon, then check the box next to the "File name extensions" option to show the file extension.
Step 5. Sync the m4r file to your iPhone
- Connect your iPhone to the computer and tap "Trust this computer" if necessary.
- Open iTunes, look for your device in the left sidebar, click on it.
- From the expanded section, choose "Tones."
- Drag the m4r file to the Tones section. If drag and drop don't work, you can use copy and paste instead.
- Select "Sync" at the bottom of the iTunes window. After that, the new tone will be synced to your iPhone.
Step 6. Set the custom ringtone on your iPhone
- Go to the Settings > Sounds > Ringtone.
- Choose the custom tone as your ringtone.
The Bottom Line
That's all about our guide on how to make a song your ringtone. We hope you have made your own custom ringtone already. As you can see, making a ringtone is not easy. But if you use the desktop-based iPhone ringtone maker, the task can be easily handled.
By the way, you can also directly purchase ringtone from iTunes if you're willing to.
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