Creating custom ringtones?

By KE8UPE, 7 May, 2024

Forum

iOS and iPadOS

Hello,
I am an Apple Music subscriber & have a particular song I would like to make into a ringtone.
I have not purchased this song. If I do, will it then let me use it as my ringtone?
I used to do this process quite a bit, but then Apple changed it and now I’m not sure of the exact steps.
The step I feel I may get stuck on is transferring the newly created ringtone to the iPhone.
Has anyone successfully gone through the process since Apple changed it and would be able to provide me updated information?
Is it easier to do this on a Mac or PC? I have both.

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Comments

Well...

Unless this is a ringtone that was directly created by the artist, I don't think that purchasing the entire song is going to automatically create a ringtone out of it. I know that it's possible to create ringtones using GarageBand on the iPhone without any additional software. You would have to get the audio, like the part of the song that you actually want to use for the ringtone. I don't quite Remember how to do this, it's been a long time since I've done it myself, but I do know it's a possibility.

I understand that the song will need to be purchased.

hi,
I totally understand that the song will need to be purchased.
I know how to find the part of the song I want.
As stated in my post, the step I may get stuck on, is the transfer from the computer to my iphone.
Is this process easier to do on a mac or pc?
I ask as I have both.

Ding Dong the Mac is dead. . .

It used to be stupid easy to transfer ringtones from a Mac to an iOS device, but alas Apple kinda screwed the pooch on this, and now it can be a bit. . . frustrating. I am unsure on how it is done now on Windows, as Windows (like Mac) has done away with iTunes, if I recall correctly.

As Winter Roses mentioned, your best bet would be doing this from the GarageBand app on your iPhone. There are plenty of tutorials online on the steps, but it is quite accessible.

HTH.

A guide on GarageBand & voiceover?

Hi,
Does a guide currently exist or would someone be willing to create one on how to do this entire process, including getting the ringtone exactly where I want it, using voiceover?

Helpful links

Disclaimer: I did not make these.

Below are 2 links for you. One is a YouTube tutorial that may be useful for you. The second link is a website full of GarageBand ringtone projects.

Basically, you download the project, and save it as a ringtone. Some pretty sweet stuff in ther.

YouTube Tutorial:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-e4BLhef-e4&pp=ygUodXNpbmcgR2FyYWdlQmFuZCBvbiBpT1MgdG8gYWRkIHJpbmd0b25lcw%3D%3D

GarageBand Ringtone Projects:
https://macmost.com/free-iphone-ringtones

Those didn’t help

Hi,
I apologize, but those links did not help. I need to know how to follow the process given in that guide with voiceover. How would I go about marking the start and endpoint?

Major frustrating

I don't know why, but this always comes up very frequently. Yet, we don't actually have a tutorial on how to efficiently get this done with voiceover, nothing up-to-date, anyway. If I remembered how to do it, I would create something, but I honestly don't. I don't know if this would help, but maybe you could try plugging what you want to do into chat GTP, and get the instructions there. I know that the app can also tell you how to get it done with voiceover. You can try using meta AI to give you the direct instructions as well. I know that on GarageBand, there is a way to set the bar to 30 seconds, that way you only have 30 seconds of content to work with on the timeline. GarageBand doesn't seem to be the most accessible on the iPhone, especially when you're trying to drag tracks onto the timeline without it becoming confusing. I know you start with an audio recording as the blank canvas. Regarding the song, I wasn't saying that you should purchase the song. What you could do, is to go to YouTube, find the song you want, screen record the part of the song that you want to use as a ringtone, trim the part that you don't want, meaning the start and the endpoint, then, you could convert the screen recording, which would be a video in this case, to audio format. It sounds like a lot, but I think it would probably be better than buying the song, especially if you want to create multiple ringtones

Re: Those didn’t help

The second link are already designed ringtone files. You simply load them into GarageBand and save them into your iPhone as a ringtone. Instructions are on that site.

Regarding the first link, well, sorry it wasn't helpful for you. There are some videos I believe on the second link too. Other than that my only advice would be to scour Google and/or YouTube for instructions/tutorials.

Best of luck~

Ringtone created but can't sync it to my iPhone

hi,
I've now created the ringtone using the music app on my mac.
The next hurdle I now need to jump through, is why it refuses to upload to OneDrive, so I can sync it to my iPhone.
I can't get it to work via Garageband, although, that would probably be ideal.
Does anyone have any suggestions on how best to accomplish this?
I just asked on Mastodon as well. I've had great success getting technical assistance on there in the past.

What have you tried so far?

Is there a possibility where you could send the ringtone to your email address, and download it from there to your phone by saving it in the Files application, then load it into GarageBand? If I remember correctly, I think you load a blank track, like an audio track in the instrument panel, And, there should be a share sheet that will allow you to save the ringtone afterwards in the tones section on your iPhone. For the life of me, I can never understand why it's not possible to share a project from the share sheet directly to GarageBand. I don't understand why we have to go through the entire Interface, just to be able to get this done. It honestly makes no sense.

My computer sees the file as an m4a.

Hi,
I'm unsure as to why, but my computer sees the file as an m4a, rather than an m4r.
Actually, it has both extensions.
Is this normal?
How can I fix it?

Does it matter?

Wait, is it that you can't use one of these file types to create the ringtone in GarageBand? If not, I wouldn't worry about this too much. I think that when you load the ringtone into the Files application, once you load it into GarageBand, it should automatically convert it to whatever file it needs to be in order to work

I didn’t think it did, but it must.

Hi,
I didn’t think it did, but it must, since I’m having so much difficulty getting the file uploaded to different cloud services. I’m not very familiar with GarageBand, and I’m having trouble trying to figure out how to import the file. Does anyone know how to do that?

Did you try emailing the tone to yourself?

OK, I don't know if I remember this correctly, but try the below steps and let me know if they work for you.
1. Open GarageBand and create a new project by tapping the "+" icon and selecting "Song".
2. Tap the "Plus" icon in the top-left corner and select "New Track".
3. Choose "Audio Track" and tap "Create".
4. This will create a blank audio track in the GarageBand timeline.
5. Now, tap the "Loop" button in the top-right corner and select "Import" from the dropdown menu.
6. Locate the "Files" option and tap on it.
7. Navigate to the folder where your audio file is stored and select it.
8. Tap "Import" to bring the file into GarageBand.
9. The file will be added to the GarageBand timeline. Tap on it to select it.
10. Tap the "Share" button in the top-right corner and select "Ringtone".
11. Choose the "Export" option and select "Export to iPhone".
12. Name your ringtone and tap "Export" to save it to your iPhone.
I was thinking that if you can't upload the ringtone to a cloud service, you could email it to yourself, then access it on your device, like your iPhone, and then save it to the Files application, then follow the above steps from there. For better results, I think that you should save the ringtone, after emailing it to yourself, to the iCloud Drive folder on your iPhone.

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