Make a Free Nokia Ringtones
Thursday, May 22nd, 2008
You will need:
- A cell phone that plays MP3’s and supports mp3 as ringtones
- A way to transfer the file, from your komputer to your phone (using a cord, Bluetooth or an email to your phone)
- Free sound-editing software, Audacity
Edit your MP3
You could simply transfer the entire MP3 to your phone, set it as your free nokia ringtone and be done with it. But most full-length songs are several minutes, and your phone only rings for about 20 seconds, which will mean a lot of wasted memory space for no good reason. Plus, you may want ONLY the Sweet Child o’ Mine guitar solo halfway into the song to play as your tone, not the first twenty seconds of the track.
Here’s where Audacity comes in. Using the free, open source, cross-platform sound editor, we’ll trim your MP3 down to the exact 20 seconds you want and add any effects as well.
- Download Audacity, install and fire it up.
- Audacity can’t edit MP3’s out of the box, it needs what’s called the LAME compression library first. Download the lame_enc.dll file here and put it somewhere permanent on your hard drive.
- From Audacity’s Edit menu, choose Preferences. On the File Formats tab, under “MP3 Export Setup,” hit the Find Library button and browse to the dll you just downloaded, as shown (click to enlarge.)
- Now the fun begins. Make a copy of your MP3 file and stow it in a temp folder somewhere other than where your music player will find it. Drag and drop it onto Audacity to open it. Using the Zoom and play buttons, find the 20 seconds of your song you want to be your ringtone. (It helps to zoom in so the time appears in 5 second increments.) Use the select tool to highlight the 20 second ring, and from the Edit menu, choose “Trim.” Now you’ve got your ringtone. Click to enlarge the screenshot.
- If you’re feeling bold and creative, browse around Audacity’s editing tools, especially the Effect menu. I like to add a “Fade In” effect to the first 7 seconds of my tone so that it doesn’t blast full-volume right away, if I’m in a quieter place and I’ve forgotten to silence the ringer.
- When you’re done editing, from the File menu, choose “Export as MP3.” Save it as, say, ringtone.mp3.
- Now, transfer the tone to your phone, either by corded or Bluetooth connection to your computer, or by emailing it to your phone’s address.
- Once the file is on your phone, set it as your custom free nokia ringtone.
