G'day Kim. I use Garage Band and after much mucking around and relearning, it's dead easy. 6 steps.
This is what I do. 1) Open garage Band and select "iPhone Ringtone" 1a) Choose "Example Ringtone" 1b) A "New Project From Template" dialogue box (is that the correct name for macs?) opens up. Name the new project and create. Mine are just saved in "GarageBand". This is the name of the ringtone. A new window will then open up with the example ringtone. Mine is "Jingles" 2) On the menu bar, choose "Track" and then select "Delete Track" - The example ringtone should disappear. Before we go on; a couple of quick explanations. The yellow bar at the top is the "cycle region" or, in other words, the part of the song that will be your ringtone. It can be turned off by clicking the button at the bottom with the two circular arrows chasing each other and next to the "Play" button. (Hovering over it will reveal "Turn cycle region on or off"). I tend to turn it off to start until I know which part of the song I want as the ringtone. When off, the whole song will play. When on, only that part of the song beneath the yellow bar will play, and play again, and play again, etc. The bar can be moved by placing the cursor in it, left click and hold and moving the cursor towards where you want to go along the time bar. To expand or shorten the yellow cycle area, place the cursor at the appropriate end where it will change into a little vertical bar with arrows either side. Click and hold - slide to wherever. The time bar is in 0.5sec increments with every 5 seconds numbered. The time is written to the right of the actual line which is slightly taller than the others. For example, the 10 second line is to the left of the numerals "00.10": it is not the line immediately underneath. The yellow cycle bar can, however, be moved to anywhere on the bar, even in between the 1/2 second marks. You can also 'move' the bar by just putting the cursor arrow at the spot you want to start and click and hold and then drag the cursor a bit. The yellow bar will appear and grow as you move it. Secondly: if you want to get rid of the track info on the right (I do as it gives me more space in the middle) go to the menu bar, choose "Track" - "Hide Track Info". Also, down the bottom to the right of the cycle region button should be an LCD display showing the time. If the time is not there, go to the menu bar; choose "Control" - "Show Time In LCD". It comes in handy sometimes. So, now to box on and make a ringtone. 3) In iTunes, select your song and drag it across and place it in the dark grey area where it says "Drag Apple Loops here." You should then have a 'box' in the left column (light grey) showing a speaker, the song name and some other graphic representations. In the dark grey area to the right is a sound graph of the song. When you drop it in, you can either drop it right to the left as there is a thin black line at the cursor point to guide you or you can just drop it anywhere and then put the cursor in it, click and hold and drag it along to the beginning of the time bar. 3a) Play your song and work out what part you want as the ringtone. 4) Turn on the "Cycle Region" - the yellow bar. 4a) adjust the cycle region to the desired position and length (maximum 40seconds). Note that the cycle region can be longer than 40 seconds and saved in GarageBand but it wont be sent to iTunes. Further explained below. 5) Save the project. (Menu Bar - File - Save) This is optional. You can still send the ringtone to iTunes without further saving the project if you wish. 6) Go to the Menu Bar and choose "Share" - "Send Ringtone To iTunes". The ringtone will then be converted and sent to iTunes and will then start playing. Go to iTunes and select "Ringtones" and there you have it. 7) To create another ringtone, repeat step 2 onwards - except use Save As at step 3 to create a new file in GarageBand. With regards to step 6: if the ringtone is too long, it will still save in GarageBand but when you go to send it to iTunes you will get the following message "Your iPhone ringtone length needs to be adjusted" plus a little explanation and then two buttons to choose - "Cancel" or "Adjust". Cancel will get rid of that info and you can just adjust the length manually or "Adjust" will automatically shorten the length to 40 seconds. However, you will then need to resend it to iTunes. So in summary; without the explanations. 1) Open garage Band and select "iPhone Ringtone"; 1a) Choose "Example Ringtone"; 1b) A "New Project From Template" dialogue box opens up. Name the new project and create. 2) On the menu bar, choose "Track" and then select "Delete Track" - The example ringtone should disappear. 3) In iTunes, select your song and drag it across and place it in the dark grey area where it says "Drag Apple Loops here." 4) Turn on the "Cycle Region" - the yellow bar; 4a) adjust the cycle region to the desired position and length. 5) Save the project (Menu Bar - File - Save). This is optional. 6) Go to the Menu Bar and choose "Share" - "Send Ringtone To iTunes". 7) To create another ringtone, repeat step 2 onwards - except use Save As at step 3 to create a new file in GarageBand. Hope this helps. Once I finally worked it out, I've had a ball making ringtones. I also found it handy to put in the comments column in iTunes who I have allocated the ringtone to. Regards, Pete Smith iMac 2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo 4GB 800 MHz DDR2 SDRAM 750GB Hdrive OS X 10.6.2 On 28/12/2009, at 17:17 PM, Kim Maher wrote: > Hi All > > Has anyone found an easy way to convert a song into a ringtone? I have used > "GarageBand", but I have not had a lot of success. I have had "4Media iPhone > Ringtone Maker” recommended, has anyone used this program? > > > Your Apple Bore > > Kim > > iMac 24” > Intel Core 2 Duo > MacBook Pro > Intel Core 2 Duo > iPhone 3GS 32GB > iPhone 3G 16GB > iTouch 16GB > OS X Snow Leopard > > > > > -- The WA Macintosh User Group Mailing List -- > Archives - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/archives.shtml> > Guidelines - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/guidelines.shtml> > Unsubscribe - <mailto:[email protected]> -- The WA Macintosh User Group Mailing List -- Archives - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/archives.shtml> Guidelines - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/guidelines.shtml> Unsubscribe - <mailto:[email protected]>
