The iPhone comes preloaded with a variety of ringtone selections. But most users generally want to set up their own custom ringtones. Now, it’s a rather complex process to set up and use custom ringtone on iPhone. If you want to create ringtones from your music library, you would need to copy the music file to your computer, crop and convert it to AAC using iTunes, change its file extension from m4a to m4r and finally sync it back to your iPhone as a ringtone using iTunes.
This method is lengthy and especially disappointing as it requires a computer (with iTunes installed) to set custom ringtones, whereas ringtones can directly be set from devices on competitive smartphone platforms (like Android, Windows Phone, etc.). Even though there are ringtone maker apps on the App Store, they usually just create the m4r file for you. And you’d still need a computer with a syncing software (like iTunes) to set it as your custom ringtone.
In this article, we’ll demonstrate how to set up custom ringtones directly from your iPhone, without requiring a computer (PC or Mac).
iOS uses a proprietary format (m4r) for its ringtones, and also does not allow them to be longer than 30 seconds. To set custom ringtones on iPhone, we need an app that can crop music files to adjust their length, save them as m4r and finally export them to the iOS ringtone library.
One such app that allows you to do so is GarageBand. It is one of Apple’s featured apps for iOS and Mac OS X, which is usually used for sound and audio editing. But one of the less known features of GarageBand for iOS is that it allows users to export edited songs as ringtone using the Share menu. GarageBand also provides access to iPhone’s music library, just in case you want to edit songs from your collection. Thus, we can set up custom ringtones on the iPhone by importing songs from the music library into GarageBand, and then exporting them as ringtone from its Share menu.
Note: GarageBand is generally a paid software, but Apple announced that it was going to give away GarageBand for free (along with a host of other apps from Apple) to users who purchase new Macs and iOS devices, since October 2013. So, if you have bought an iPhone within the last year, chances are that you can download GarageBand for free.
Create Ringtone from iPhone Music without iTunes
The below steps will demonstrate how to import songs from your Music Library into GarageBand, then crop them to a suitable length for ringtone conversion:
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Download and install Garageband from the App Store.
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Launch GarageBand and choose Audio Recorder on the Instruments screen.
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Tap on the Metronome icon (the triangular icon next to the Record button) to disable it. This will prevent any count-in sequence to occur during playback.
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Next tap on the ‘+’ icon on the timeline at the top right corner to bring up the ‘Song Sections’ screen.
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Tap on ‘Section A’ and slide up the counter to 30 under Manual. Make sure Automatic is turned off. This will extend the track to 30 bars (30 seconds long).
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Tap on Done to close Song Sections.
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Tap on the Tracks icon (second from the top left) to bring up the Tracks view.
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Tap on Loops icon (second from the top right) and select the Music tab.
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Browse your Music Library, tap and hold the song you want to create the ringtone from, and import it to the Tracks view.
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Adjust the slider on both sides to crop the portion of the song you want to keep for your ringtone.
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You can optionally add additional tracks if you want to mix multiple songs or edit the current one.
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Finally when you are satisfied with the editing, tap on the little Arrow icon on the top left corner of the screen and choose My Songs from the drop-menu. Your edited song will automatically be saved in the GarageBand gallery.
Add Ringtone to iPhone without Computer
Now that you have created a custom tone, you can easily set it as ringtone on your iPhone. The below steps will guide you to do so:
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Open GarageBand and go to Audio Recorder interface.
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Tap on the Arrow icon in the top left corner and select My Songs.
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Hold on newly saved song in the GarageBand gallery to select it and tap on the Share button in the top left corner of the screen.
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Select Ringtone from the Share menu (last row) and provide a suitable name for the new ringtone.
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Finally, tap on Export to save the selected GarageBand song as a ringtone.
Note: By default, iOS allows ringtones to be 30 seconds long at the most. If your custom tone is longer than that duration, iOS will automatically crop the first 30 seconds while exporting.
To choose the newly exported ringtone as your current one, open Settings >> Sounds >> Ringtone and select it among the list of available tones.
The ability to export a song as ringtone can usually be achieved with apps that support importing media from the music library, and which has Ringtone option in the Share menu. As of now, we could find only GarageBand with both these features supported. If you find any other app providing these features, and lets you export music files as ringtones from the music library, do let us know in the comments below.
Mike says
Creating your own ringtone can be complicated and time consuming. If you want to add some new tones check http://www.itones.us.com for some of the latest new ringtones.
Ashvin says
Thanks mike for your comment…