As part #2 in my mini-series on making a ringtone website; a full tutorial on how to make ringtones for the iphone! I might also post a variant version of this tutorial on www.outerspaceringtones.com at some point - principally in order to add additional valuable content to that site with a view to building its popularity.
Note that this tutorial has been tested by me in OSX 10.4.11 but I am not much of a PC guy and so can’t tell you whether it will work on PC, sorry about that.
There’s actually a fair amount of tech involved in successfully constructing ringtones for the iphone - more than I originally expected even though I am an audio producer. For example, I discovered the hard way that there’s another whole layer of work involved with getting the iphone ringtones to the right loudness. More on this below.
First, here’s the breakdown on actually making an iphone ringtone.
Step 1: creating / preparing the audio segment that you are going to use.
I am going to assume that you have already created / acquired the overall audio file, song, mp3 or recording you are going to turn into a ring tone. In my case, as I have been a music producer for years, I made ringtones from either sections of electronic dance tracks I had laying around, or I took audio files of synth sounds and instrumental parts I had composed and recorded. In your own case; I presume either you will take an existing song from your music collection, or you will make a recording using instruments, the sheer unbridled creativity that is bursting out of you, and recording software such as Cubase, Pro Tools, Logic or Digital Performer. (I use Cubase).
Next thing you need to know is that there is a maximum length that your ihpone ringtones can be: and not everyone is in agreement on this figure! It is often said that the maximum length is 30 seconds; however I have created successful iphone ringtones that are 32 seconds. I’d recommend sticking to a max length of 30 seconds though, just to be sure. Also, I have read somewhere online of someone who hacked their iphone and ftp’ed the ringtones to their phone - who was able to get much longer ring tones. This clever soul also did an audio edit on the ringtones and put in a long “fade-in” - and set them to be alarm clock tones which woke them up gently. Note - I am not sure but I believe that hacking your iphone will void the warranty - anyway I feel obliged to state officially that I do not recommend that you hack your iphone!
Anyway, in order to edit your audio file and cut out a 30-second (or less) segment, you’ll need to use an audio editor software. Some good examples include Wavelab (PC), Peak (OSX), Cubase, Pro Tools, Logic… all of these softwares are awesome - and cost money - but there is some free stuff out there. Check out Audacity for a free audio editor for OSX.
Specific instructions for how to cut out and export your audio segment will vary from editor to editor, but essentially the process involves cutting the audio to size, setting left and right “markers” if necessary (i.e. in Cubase), putting in any desired fade-ins / fade-outs, and then “bouncing”, exporting or simply saving (i.e. in Peak) you audio file. In Audacity this is accomplished via File > Export as AIFF.
Ideally, export your file either as a .aif (AIFF) file if you are on OSX or as a .wav (WAV) file if you are on PC. I recommend putting the file on your desktop in order to make it easy to locate as we move along. You should easily be able (OSX) to audition your new audio file by highlighting it, hitting Command-I and pressing the play button that appears in the info window.
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Step 2: Converting your audio to an iphone ringtone file.
Next task is converting audio segment into an m4r file (this is the format that apple uses for iphone ringtones).
This process is quite simple although it appears that Apple has “moved the goal posts” a couple of times on this issue - presumably as they straighten out their policy regarding the creation / monetization of ringtones. I am currently in the most up to date version of iTunes (7.6.2) and this technique is working fine!
First, open itunes and go to the iTunes > Preferences menu. Select “Advanced” from the options and then “Importing”. Select “Import Using: AAC Encoder”. You may wish to adjust the “Quality” setting but in general I’d advise using the “Higher Quality (256kbps)” setting - you want the ringtones to sound as good as possible!
Once you have adjusted these preferences, hit “OK”.
Next, drag the audio segment which will become the ringtone into the main itunes window. Highlight it, and then go to Advanced > Convert Selection to AAC.
Then, locate the file you have converted. If you are in OSX this should appear in Users > *Yourname* > Music > iTunes > iTunes music - possibly in a subfolder. It will have the same title as your original audio segment but with the file extension “m4a”. Note that it will NOT be in the “ringtones” folder… typically it will be either Unknown Artist > Unknown Album or will be in a folder with the title of the artist / album if your audio file had the relevant iTunes tags.
(Note - you could also locate the converted file using the itunes search. After entering the track title, you will see two versions of the file - one being the unconverted audio, the other being the converted file ; select the one with the most recent date and time on it and hit Command-R. If you just try to reveal the file using Cmd-R on the previously selected and converted audio, you will reveal the original audio, not the converted section.)
Next step - this is important - *copy* your new m4a file to your desktop. I have found that getting the ringtone back into itunes and onto your iphone doesn’t work properly if you try to do it with the file in situ: It seems to be that because the file is already in itunes as a song, it won’t let you re-import it as a ringtone.
Next, change the extension of the file ON THE DESKTOP from “.m4a” to “.m4r”. OSX will ask you if you are sure that you want to choose m4r, hit “Use .m4r”.
Congratulations! You have created an iphone ringtone.
You’ll want to test / audition this ringtone on your iphone. I’ve already created a full tutorial for how to upload ringtones to an iphone and audition them - you’ll see this on www.outerspaceringtones.com - along with my tasty all-original 100% free ringtones just sitting there waiting for you to help yourself!
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Step 3: Advanced - mastering your iphone ringtones for best sound quality.
When I created my first iphone ringtones, they were often either too quiet (when the phone rang I didn’t always hear it going off) or too loud (distorted and nasty sounding when the iphone was at full volume.)
I quickly realized that I would have to experiment with “mastering techniques” in order to get the ringtones right.
This step is a technical - and it’ll be greatly advantageous to have audio production skills here. However, this can make quite a difference to the quality of your end results and so it’s quite an important step in order to put the cherry on top of the cake, so to speak. Especially if you are either giving away or selling your ringtones at the end of the day - you’ll want them to be top notch.
I’ll break it down as simply I possibly can and provide links to as many free resources as I can in order to get you on your way.
Audio mastering is actually a highly advanced art and science - with top mastering studios charging mucho money for their services - and for good reason: mastering can make a huge difference to the sound quality of a piece of music when it is either heard on the radio or played back on your stereo or a club sound system.
Essentially, mastering involves fixing any digital errors, getting the EQ (amount of bass, treble and midrange) right, and getting the loudness and energy of the recording right so that it sounds great. There are all kinds of techniques and expensive equipment that mastering studios use in order to give tracks that big sound….
However, we’re not going to go ballistic. Our mission here is simply to get the tracks sounding good on the iphone - which basically means getting them so they are loud enough that you can hear when your phone is ringing, but not too loud so that they are distorted and messed up. This is actually a bit of a trick when the ringtone needs to be reproduced through the iphone’s tiny speaker… but the good news is that if you have an iPhone, you can audition your results and make sure you get them right.
In order to do this properly, I essentially experimented with creating several versions of audio files, all with different amounts of EQ, normalization, etc. - and played the resulting files back on the iphone to find out which ones sounded the best. I needed to get to the core of the matter; find out what were the causes of distortion, and find out if there were settings I could always rely on for great results when creating iphone ringtones. I’ve summarized the results of my experiments below.
There are certain types of sound which are prone to distortion on the iphone. The most challenging I found to be piano sounds. This was a surprise - I half expected low bass sounds to distort most, but for the most part I found bass to be reproduced cleanly - although obviously with virtually nothing in the way of real trouser-flapping low-end through the tiny iPhone speaker. 
This is good news; I found that I didn’t really need to do any EQing to get the best from my ringtones: sounds in the most audible part of the spectrum (i.e. the midrange) will usually break up before the bass does.
Here’s the simplest summary I could make, of what to do when creating a ringtone in order to get the best sound quality. If you are serious about this I totally recommend making several versions of a ringtone - each with different mastering settings - and testing them all, keeping the one which works best. So it will be important to keep all your audio files organized and LABEL THEM so that you know which one is which. It’s also good to make notes on your settings and what you did to the file; so that you can repeat the process in future if need be.
To make ringtone louder:
First, make sure that your file is “normalized”. If you are still constructing your song, you can do this simply by adjusting the master output so that the audio level of the track peaks just below zero dB.
However if all you have is a finished track or mp3 file, you’ll need to perform a normalization function. Don’t worry, it’s just a technical term for volume adjustment and has nothing to do with making your ringtone sound just like all the other ringtones…
Normalization is a built in function of audio editing softwares such as Peak or Wavelab. To perform the normalization process, an audio editor software will find the highest “peak” and turn the volume of the whole track up so that this peak reaches full volume. It’s the loudest the file can be without digital overload or without changing the sonic characteristics of the audio file. Just to confuse you, the technical term for full volume of a digital audio track is “zero dB”.
As an alternative to Normalization - say for example in Cubase, you could import your audio segment into an empty audio document and play it back, watching the output meters and adjusting the volume so that the final output peaks just below zero dB; then “export” your audio section to create a new file which will peak at full volume.
However, normalization is often not enough: I sometimes found that even when I had normalized an audio file to zero dB, it was too quiet. So if you still want the ringtone louder; which you often will, you can do one of two things: Either EQ out some of the low bass (i.e. using a shelving EQ hard or a high pass filter to remove everything below, say, 80 Hz) and then re-normalize, or add compression or limiting to the file - and this needs to be performed from within an audio editor software using a plug-in.
There are a myriad of mastering plugins available and some are bundled with audio editor software - however one I totally recommend for this process is George Yohng’s Limiter which is totally free, sounds awesome and is available as a VST Plugin for Cubase on both PC and Mac, and as an AudioUnit plugin.
Try the following settings for George Yohng’s Limiter:
Apply the Limiter as an insert effect on the master output channel and set the master output channel’s fader to “zero dB” (i.e. about 80% of the way up).
Threshold -2.5dB
Ceiling -0.1dB
Release 50ms
Adjusting the Threshold setting will adjust the final output level of the audio - with lower Threshold settings leading to a louder file.
To make a ringtone quieter:
If the ringtone is distorting when you have uploaded it to the iphone, you’ll need to chill it out a little. The simplest way to do this is to normalize it (as above) - only select an output setting of perhaps -3 or -6 dB either for your normalization function or for the master output fader. The best solution here would be to create a few files at different volumes; and test them out by playing them back on the iphone to see which one sounds best. If you are applying limiting to a file, try raising the threshold a little (say to -2.0dB) and then turning down the master fader on the output.
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Summary
Well, you’ll need to know a lot more than this if you intend to become a mastering engineer - but hopefully that’s got you on your way towards creating and using some top-notch iphone ringtones. I hope it wasn’t hideously technical and confusing - let me know!
The next tutorial in this series on designing a ringtone web site will cover how to set up the ringtones for auditioning and downloading from the ringtone web site itself….
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Tags: #3 How-To Articles, Creating A Ringtone Website by alex
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