Sunday, November 15, 2009

Tutorial for ALL iPhone/Mac users, free ringtones! =)

*Note: Any screenshots in my tutorials can always be clicked on in order to enlarge them.

A lot of Mac/iPhone users still ask me if there's a program they can download or purchase to make ringtones for their iPhone instead of using the built-in option in iTunes. For one, iTunes doesn't allow you to make ringtones out of EVERY song, and if you're like me, and all you're music isn't from iTunes, you'd have to buy the song again, not to mention pay to convert it to a ringtone. Lame.

Now I know there's software programs and jailbroken programs that have endless amounts of ringtones, but I'm also aware not EVERYONE jailbreaks.

Now keep in mind, this tutorial only works for Mac users, so sorry PC users (maybe it's time to make the switch, ha!) ;)

Mac users, you don't have to buy or download ANY additional software, it's built right in to your computer already; it's this nice little program called GarageBand, that pretty much comes standard on every Mac ever made.

The reason I like GarageBand so much is because you can mix it however you want. You have a lot more control. If you want to mesh different songs together, you can do that as well.

First open GarageBand, it will ask you to pick a template or whatever, select "New Project" - it doesn't matter what the heck you name it, I normally just keep song 1 or whatever it's defaulted to, and keep overwriting that file. You can change the name of the ringtone and Artist in iTunes once you import it into your ringtones tab.

Next, you want to open iTunes and find the song you want to make a ringtone out of and drag it into GarageBand.

The only thing you really have to familiar yourself with is Apple loops. Ringtones need to be under around 34-35 seconds for GarageBand to convert it to a ringtone, and it needs to be made with an Apple loop, which basically just selects a portion of the song to make a ringtone out of.

Alright, after you drag your song into GarageBand, you should see this (if GarageBand opened a virtual keyboard, just x it out). I also go to the counter and change it to time instead of measures (located on the bottom).



Now expand the view by clicking the tiny scissor icon in the bottom left hand corner of GarageBand (3rd icon from the left in the screenshot below):



Then you will see this:



This is where you will highlight areas that you want to cut out (if you choose to do this), otherwise you can just position an apple loop in order to select the part of the song you want to convert.

Now comes the Apple loop part, next to your play/pause/forward controls to the right, you should see this button:



Go ahead, don't be scared, click it! Now look at the top of garage band, you should now see a yellow bar that looks like this:



You can adjust the length of this bar, and slide it back and forth.

For example, say you just want the chorus of a specific song, just drag this bar to the chorus part, adjust it accordingly, and you'd be done (unless you want to add things like fade outs and what-not - if someone would like a more detailed, in-depth tutorial of GarageBand that goes into great detail about editing, splicing, mixing, etc, just let me know and I'll post that separate).

But it's still note-worthy, a fade-out can be accomplished by clicking Track --> Fade Out, and you'll then see a purple bar above your expanded view and you can click to add dots and drag them up and down to fade the volume in and out.

Also remember that your expanded view is where you would highlight parts you want to cut. I do this when maybe there is two parts of a song I want to fit in a ringtone, I'll find a good place to splice it and then remove the middle and just use a fade or mix to transition the two together.

Once you are done positioning your region and tweaking to your liking, you're ready to import into iTunes, simply go to share and send ringtone to iTunes like in the screenshot below!



GarageBand will ask you for a title, album etc, blah blah, just fill in random crap, you can change it to whatever you like in your ringtones tab in iTunes.

Now you're done and you can convert any songs you like to a ringtone without paying a dime or downloading new software!

Hope this helps a few Mac users. =)

GarageBand gives you a lot more control than free websites and software, plus you can mix songs together, just drag them both on the project. Mess with it and have fun! =)

This isn't just for jailbreakers, this works on stock iPhones too as its legitimate.

As always, thanks for reading.

-iMuggle

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