Creating Ringtones with GarageBand On Your iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch

Quick Notes

This guide was submitted when Garageband's interface was still based on iOS 7/8/9's iCloud Drive app, when the Files app never existed, and you had to have your files saved in iTunes File Sharing to access them.

This is no longer the case, so I've updated the guide based on its new interface.

Start of the Guide

In this guide, I'll be explaining the process of making ringtones using the GarageBand app.

No computer is necessary, and it can completely be done by only using 2GB, meaning GarageBand's estimated size.

To create ringtones, follow these steps.

1. Launch GarageBand from your home screen.
2. If you are not in the Recents tab already, select recents from the bottom left corner. Then, select the Add button.
3. An instrument pannel expands. We want to make tracks in this demonstration, but you can certainly use Live Loops as your ringtone. Select tracks, then select an instrument with a three finger swipe left and right to cycle through the available ones.
4. Play a melody or import a loop of your choice. To import a loop, refer to the Importing Loops/Audio Files section of the guide. For now, use the touch screen, to play out a melody/beat of your choice.
5. Now, tap the Menu button at the top of the screen, and select My Songs. Do note, your recording, can only be less than or equal to 30 seconds. 8 bars at a BPM (Beats per Minute) of 110, the default BPM on GarageBand, takes up about 15 to 20 seconds of the ringtone.
6. Now you are back in the Recents tab, at least I am going with the fact that you are in the Recents tab. Find your song, and use the rotor gesture to find Actions. Sjipe down until you hear Share, then double tap.
7. In Share, there are three weirdly labeled buttons. Document Sharing Audio, Document Sharing Ringtone, and Ducument Sharing Project. Select Document Sharing Ringtone.
8. From here, the steps are the same as in previous builds. Type the name of your ringtone in the text field, and hit Export. An alert should pop up on screen asking you what type of tone you want it to be. Selecting Ringtone will make that file a ringtone, and selecting Text Tone will make it a Text Tone.

Importing Loops/Audio Files

If you have GarageBand set up with iCloud, you should have two folders.

One is called GarageBand File Transfer, which keeps track of your imported Audio Files, and the other is called GarageBand, which is just for keeping track of your projects, in a .BAND format.

To import audio files, GarageBand File Transfer is the folder you must place the files in.

To do this, simply move the Audio Files, into GarageBand File Transfer. This can be done from the Files app, or using the option Save to Files if you are exporting from another app.

If exporting from another app, select On my iPhone/iPad/iPod, which will expand the folder. Then below it, select GarageBand File Transfer. Then at the top, select Add to confirm that the GarageBand File Transfer folder is precisely where you want to place your audio files.

To access the audio files, use the Loops option in the Tracks view, then select chudio Files. This will bring up all the files you've placed in the GarageBand File Transfer folder.

You can simply double tap and hold, then drag them to the left to import them.

If you have a file in a different location, such as GDrive or Dropbox, you can choose Browse Items from the Files App, at the bottom of the screen, and add Dropbox and Drive as one of your locations, then choose a file from their directories.

Conclusion

I hope this guide is helpful. If you have any questions regarding this guide or another post I've submitted, use my contact form on my profile page.