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A guide to making Smartphone ringtones


Guest Simon Desser

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Guest Simon Desser

I'm regularly being asked how to make ringtones for our Smartphones, so I thought I'd do a short guide.

In my guide I'm using Cool Edit 2000, but the basics are the same using any Wav file editor. I'm sure there are plenty of free/cheap wav editors out there, and don't forget, even the expensive top programs like Cool Edit and Soundforge usually have a 30 day trial, which is plenty of time to knock out some cool tones if you don't want to buy them :)

I save my tones as:- Windows PCM Wav 11025Hz 16bit Mono

(They won't sound great on your PC, but there's not really any point having higher quality than this to play out of your Smartphone's speaker)

1) Open the song in Cool Edit (right click & Send to Cool Edit) OR, record the section of song you want in Cool Edit from a CD)

2) Trim the portions of the song you want, zooming in close to finely tune the selction. (Left click & drag your mouse over the sections you want)

3) Discard the bits of the song you don't want, by clicking the "Crop Tool" (or Ctrl + T)

4) Once you're happy with the selection, click "EDIT" & "CONVERT SAMPLE TYPE" (or F11) - Choose 11,025 Hz, 16bit MONO

5) Now to "Normalize" the volume, click "TRANSFORM" & "AMPLITUDE" Choose 100% (This makes the song as loud as possible without distortion)

6) OPTIONAL - If you can't find a nice clean point to end the song, you might want to fade it out. Select the last few seconds of the wav, then click ""TRANSFORM", "AMPLITUDE" & "AMPLIFY", Then click the "FADE" button, and move the "FINAL AMPLIFICATION" slider to Zero.

7) Now to save your tone, click "FILE", "SAVE AS" and change the file type to "WINDOWS PCM (wav)"

I've included a little video clip in Divx format, which shows all the above in action ;)

Cheers

Simon.

Making a Ringtone.zip

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This is great stuff, looked at it last night, downloaded what I needed and made my first ringtone earlier today :) When my girlfriend gets back from work I'll no doubt be pressed into making ringtones for her E100 too :D

Incidently I went looking for this in the articles section this morning as I expected it to be there ;)

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  • 3 weeks later...
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Guest bapp336

Thanks simon works great. But whilst playing around i did find that you could also use 8bit Mono 22khz. This will give you about the same file size as 16bit Mono 11050hz but can also give you that little extra treble range, without introducing too much hiss.

But i must admit it did work better on some tunes than others. Don`t know why since they`re all coming from CD quality source.

Regards

10,000 Lemmings can`t be wrong!!!!!!!!!!!!

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hello guys I’ve only had my spv 6weeks so I’m a newbie, but I’d like to add some tips to Simons. There a few things you can do to make you ring tones that little bit louder and clearer. I recommend using sonic foundry sound forge.

The spv speaker is has a very poor low end (bass) response so it is worth taking away the low end with an eq. You can use a simple graphic eq, or as I prefer a parametric eq and put a low cut filter starting at around 250hz. This will make the whole file a little clearer. While you are in the eq you could also add a little lift to the centre frequency, this is where the spv speaker is most responsive. try experimenting.

There is another thing you can do instead of normalising the file. USE COMPRESSION. Do not confuse this with file compression eg. MP3. Audio Compression is a method that equalises the volume of a file. It will take quiet parts of the file and lift them to the same level as the loud parts, there by creating an all over louder file. This method is used extensively in television adverts. You may notice that averts are much louder than tv programs. This is perceived volume and created by heavy compression.

Convert the file format in sound forge using resample. This will give a clearer sound than using something like save as in sound recorder.

Finally after you have converted the file format you could apply a noise reduction filter to remove any hissy granular artefacts that have occurred in the format change, I use a plug in called waves noise reduction to accomplish this.

Hope that helps, when I get some time I will post again with an in depth look at setting up a compressor.

Hear is an spv ring tone of a guy called Gerald’s voodoo ray I have created using the above methods.

voodooray spv ringtone

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  • 4 months later...
Guest nvkid909

:) :wink: the ringtone is class, also very spooky as i also have made a ringtone of said classic! :wink:

also theres numerous music production sites with free loops, many of them drum & bass, great for the message tones.

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Guest AvWijk

It's great, but how do you remove the deep basses if you have selected a beat loop or something :) It sounds a bit disorted on lower quality. I have Cool Edit Pro 2.1

Wait I got it, I just adjusted the volume of the loud speaker.. I'ms sorry , thnx for the great settings + video clip

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Guest MadElves

There's a program called Audigy that works great for me... it encodes anything to WAV and got a build in MP3 encoder....

you can also edit the program in mp3 on the fly

best of all... it's free

i forgot the page but it's searchable in google... keyword : audigy

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Guest NikLP

Can someone confirm or deny that Audigy is (IMO) incorrect and that we were actually supposed to be looking for Audacity?

Audacity is here @ SourceForge

This is a free 2.7MB d/l and I have to say, I've never had problems with anything that's come from SourceForge. Yet.

EDIT: Screw that, it doesn't resample = pants

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Guest NikLP
once I've done this - how do I get the ringtone into the correct folder on my E200 please?  thanks  Chris

Chris - you can browse to StorageApplication DataSounds on your E200 and place the .wav there - after that, it will be available in the Sounds menu in Settings.

If you want to use a ringtone on your Storage Card, I suggest you see the other topics in this area of the forums - 'Tips & Tricks by Chris Benjaminsen' (sp) and others similar have the required information.

If you are having trouble with exploring on your phone, go to Binarys and get Smart Explorer, for essential registry editing (see Midnight's 'Tweaks' thread) go get PHM Registry Editor here.

Ok dude?

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  • 2 weeks later...
Guest carpathia

personally, myself use wma as ringtone - the file size is small and it sounds great : ) except the low bass of course

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Guest Simon Desser
personally, myself use wma as ringtone - the file size is small and it sounds great : ) except the low bass of course

Welcome to MoDaCo :)

You're right, BUT, WMA's can only be used as ringtones on the E200, which means the majority of MS Smartphones still have to use wavs, and this guide was written well before the E200 was released :lol:

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Guest afroahmed

um, i follow your instuctions exactly bvut whenever i set it as my ringotone i only here a *beeep*, instead of the ringtone i made. plays well on pc but when i drag it over to smartphone doesnt play. help!

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Guest Simon Desser
um, i follow your instuctions exactly bvut whenever i set it as my ringotone i only here a *beeep*, instead of the ringtone i made. plays well on pc but when i drag it over to smartphone doesnt play. help!

Are you sure you've saved your ringtones as PCM wavs and not ACM :?:

If they're ACM wavs they'll play on a PC, but not on your phone.

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Guest Simon Desser
i tried both and neither worked

If you fancy zipping one or two of them up and posting them here I'll have a look at them for you :?: :P

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  • 2 months later...
Guest wookieloou

There's only like a 10% difference in file size with a .wav at that compression and 192kb .wma. The sound quality is noticable in the ringtone, so why go with .wav and low compression when storage really isn't an issue on the phone, especially with what a 30sec max ringtone?

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