Project 8- Ringtone

Time to take a break and do something light, fun and quick.

The ringtone buisness is huge. Cellular News reports sales of ringtones topping $750 million in 2009. There's really no reason for you (or anyone else) to spend a dime on a ringtone when you can make your own for free.  Here's how.

All you have to do is convert your music into a format that your phone understands.  For my IPhone it's the M4r format.  Your phone might be different, but we can get to that later. After you have the correct format, you have to get the audio file into your phone.  I'll by syncing with ITunes to accomplish this, but some of you may be able to receive the file in a text message.

There are a bunch of sites that will do the conversion for you, and most of them are free.  The one I like is www.myxer.com.  It's very intuitive and you don't even need an account. I won't describe the step by step instructions here because they are on the myxer web site and you need to follow the instructions for your specific phone.  Warning- if your cell service plan are charges you for text messaging and you elect to have your ringtone texted to you, you will probably be charged for the text message (since you'll be texting yourself)- not the ringtone. If you'd like to avoid the charge, opt to download the ringtone.

Creating a ringtone is different from creating a song or other loop in a number of ways. First, the ring will probably only be listend to for a few seconds.  No long introductions please.  Get the tune rockin' right away. Second, phones (even my IPhone) have crummy speakers.  The majestic bass sound that you hear in your monitors on your computer will not translate well to your phone. Expect some bass frequency loss, and don't make your ringtone completely dependet on success of the bass freqency.

After you have used FL Studio to create your ringtone, convert it from a .flp to a .mp3 and upload it to myxer.  Follow the remaining steps on the site to get it into your phone.

Congrats!