HOW TO MAKE A RINGTONE FOR YOUR IPHONE FOR FREE

Ok...well, last night, a friend of mine Scott Berglin taught me how to make a custom ringtone from a song on my iphone using itunes and my mac... AND being the nice guy that I am... I shall now share the secret with you with 15 step-by-step instructions... for even a dummy like me.

1. Open itunes.  
2. Find the song you want to make the ringtone from.
3. Highlight the song and right click on it (or hold the control key and click the mouse). Select "get info".  
4. Go to the options tab and change the duration to the start and stop time you want your ringtone to be. 30 seconds is the max.  So I choose 29 or less just so there are no problems.  Click "OK" in the bottom right hand corner which will save the changes.
5. Right click and select "create AAC version".
• if the file is "protected", a window will pop up and tell you that you cannot. In this case you will have to stop right here and burn the song to CD and reimport the song. Then start the process again.
6. Search for the song in itunes.  You'll now see a version of the song that is 30 seconds or so in duration... whatever you chose it to be when you made the start and stop time in step 4
7. Right click the song again and choose, "show in finder".
8. Find the song.... which will now be highlighted and will likely be the name of the song with a "1" added to the title.
9. Change the song name as you wish and change the ending from ".m4a" to ".m4r".  When the confirmation window asks you if you want to do this, click "use .m4r" when it asks.
10. Type "ringtones" in the search window on your harddrive.  You're looking for a folder labeled "ringtones".  It should be under your user/your user name/music/itunes music/ringtones.   When you find it, drag your .m4r file in there.
11. Double click on the ringtone you've just made and play at least some of the song in itunes.  I don't know why. Just do it.  We're the dummies- remember?
12. Plug in your iphone to your computer.  Find your iphone in the left bar and click it.  Now make sure you have selected "sync ringtones" under your "ringtones tab".  Now perform the sync. 
13. When the sync is done, on your iphone... you can go to settings and change all your calls to become that ringtone under the "sounds" tab in the settings app or... 
14. .... you can customize a single friend(s) only.  To do this, go to your contacts and pick a friend you want to have a custom ringtone for when they call.  Select "edit". Select the ringtone tab and then scroll for your song which will now be added above the stock ringtones that came with your phone.   Choose the one you want.
15. BAAMMMO!  You're in biz and unless you chose a sucky song, you're cool too. 

Out.