MP3 Ringtones

[InAppleHeaven]

I just purchased a motorola v551 cell phone from cingular. It has bluetooth, and the capability to play an mp3 as a ringtone. However, if I put an mp3 on there, it takes up a lot of space. There is only a 64meg media card installed, and ive been told its the biggest one I can get. Is there a way to edit an mp3 in order to just play like a 20 second clip of the song? That way, I could have several mp3 clips to use as ringtones. Anyone experimented with doing this?? P.S. Anyone checked out the new IPod Shuffle?

[AliensAreFuzzy]

There is a program I had on an old PC, MP3 Direct Cut, It was a simple program that you could use to clip MP3s. I'll quick look around for it

Edit: Found it. If you have a PC...MP3 Direct Cut (http://www.pcwelt.de/index.cfm?pid=665&pk=102231&p=2)

[mox358]

Lucky for you I researched this exact situation extensivly when I got my Cingular v551. And I will now share with you my solution :)

Cacophony 1.3.1

It's a lightweight MP3 editor. Drop in your MP3, trim the part you want, and resave it. Then copy it over! That simple...

Linky - Cacophony (http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/15045)

[Applespider]

It's also worthwhile when you save your shortened MP3 to cut the quality of it. You really don't need a 192bit stereo ringtone since your phone has only one speaker. Take it right down to the bare minimum and convert it to mono - it will cut the size dramatically and allow you to fit more on.

I used to use Audacity to do this when I had a PC. I assume Audacity for the Mac would do a similar job.

PS Another fun thing to do is to create Garageband ringtones. I'm not musical enough to create full blown symphonies but a 30 second ringtone is within my capabilities!

[Veldek]

PS Another fun thing to do is to create Garageband ringtones. I'm not musical enough to create full blown symphonies but a 30 second ringtone is within my capabilities!Interesting idea! I think I will try this.

[wrldwzrd89]

It's also worthwhile when you save your shortened MP3 to cut the quality of it. You really don't need a 192bit stereo ringtone since your phone has only one speaker. Take it right down to the bare minimum and convert it to mono - it will cut the size dramatically and allow you to fit more on.

I used to use Audacity to do this when I had a PC. I assume Audacity for the Mac would do a similar job.

PS Another fun thing to do is to create Garageband ringtones. I'm not musical enough to create full blown symphonies but a 30 second ringtone is within my capabilities!
Linky (http://audacity.sourceforge.net/) - for those wondering where to get Audacity from.

As far as quality goes, the lowest settings I can recommend without the audio sounding distorted are 24 kbps (mono) / 48 kbps (stereo) bit rate (no VBR), 11.025 kHz sample rate, mono. If you're doing the encoding in iTunes (which is what I used to test the different settings), also check "filter frequencies below 10 Hz" and uncheck "smart encoding adjustments".

EDIT: 32 kbps starts to sound distorted at 11.025 kHz. iTunes won't let me choose 40 kbps at that sample rate though. 8 kHz sounds awful even at 64 kbps. (all bit rates are the stereo versions - divide by 2 for mono)

[InAppleHeaven]

Thanks Mox358. Seems like a cool program to do what I wanted. Now if you can just tell me how to use it, LOL. I tinkered with it and saved a clip to my desktop, but when I used bluetooth to send it to the phone, it said it failed. Should I cjange it to another format. It asked me what format, but had no idea what to use. Thanks in advance.

[wrldwzrd89]

Thanks Mox358. Seems like a cool program to do what I wanted. Now if you can just tell me how to use it, LOL. I tinkered with it and saved a clip to my desktop, but when I used bluetooth to send it to the phone, it said it failed. Should I cjange it to another format. It asked me what format, but had no idea what to use. Thanks in advance.
I think MP3 is the one you want. You mentioned MP3 support in your phone in your first post, so I'm a little surprised that you wouldn't think to save it as an MP3. See my earlier post for advice on encoding settings.

[InAppleHeaven]

I would have saved it as an mp3, but there is no option for it, only wav and a bunch of other formats thative never heard of. Weird. I'll keep toying with it.

[wrldwzrd89]

I would have saved it as an mp3, but there is no option for it, only wav and a bunch of other formats thative never heard of. Weird. I'll keep toying with it.
That's easily fixed. Just save it as a WAV file, import it into iTunes, use iTunes to make it an MP3, then control-click the MP3 in the iTunes Library and choose Show Song File. This file is the one you want to transfer over to your phone.

[JzzTrump22]

I know there is a free client for PC called Audacity. It opens the full song then you cut out the parts you don't want. I used to use it for my V300. Worked great.

[wrldwzrd89]

I know there is a free client for PC called Audacity. It opens the full song then you cut out the parts you don't want. I used to use it for my V300. Worked great.
See my earlier post that starts with Linky for the site to get Audacity. It's available for Mac OS X too and functions much the same way.

[_bnkr612]

T637 user here, how can you convert to .mid format? I am some trouble with this.

Thanks.

[wrldwzrd89]

T637 user here, how can you convert to .mid format? I am some trouble with this.

Thanks.
That's difficult, to say the least - I only know of programs to convert to .mid for Windows. Also, .mid (MIDI) files are small, but they're not sampled like other formats - meaning the quality of any conversion to .mid will be MUCH lower.

[mox358]

That's easily fixed. Just save it as a WAV file, import it into iTunes, use iTunes to make it an MP3, then control-click the MP3 in the iTunes Library and choose Show Song File. This file is the one you want to transfer over to your phone.

Sorry... I left that part out... my bad. After you clip the ringtone, you do need to save it as a .WAV, then import it into iTunes and make an MP3 out of it. I just change the artist to Ringtone, and then it is easily found in your iTunes Music folder.

If you have any more questions I'll try to help.

[InAppleHeaven]

Thanks mox and wizard. Great advice. Works great.

[Bunzi2k4]

hmmm I just got a V551, and it says my mp3 is corrupt... but after reading other peoples success, I think I'll try a few more...

[ChrisBrightwell]

iTunes can do it.

Select the song you want, Get Info on it, set the start and end times to whatever you want the tone to encompass (25 seconds max).

Set the "Import" preferences to 64kbit MP3 (mono).

Then right-click the track you tweaked start/end times on and hit "conver to MP3." That'll convert your ~25 seconds to a 64kbit mono mp3. Perfect for ringtones.

All you have to do then is put it on your phone (however you'd do that) and set it as your ringtone.

[ChrisBrightwell]

Also, if you have trouble setting it as a ringtone, try sending it to a bogus number (I use 555-5555) in a media/picture message.

The send will fail (obviously), but the song will get transferred to the "Outbox" portion of your phone's memory, where you should be able to set it as a ringtone.

I do this on my v700 (Verizon) and it works perfectly.

[dotdotdot]

Just so you know, you'll want the MP3 to be at MOST 96 kbps, anything higher is overkill - the phone can't play songs at a higher quality than that.

[tangerineyum]

i was got that idea as well, except i guess i did it a harder way than necessary. I used QuickTime Pro to edit the AAC file. exported it to .aiff and changed the audio to mono at 8 bit sample rate. then imported into itunes and converted into an mp3 at 48kbps, found the file then sent via blue tooth to my phone. jeezers thats complicated.

BTW those d link bluetooth adapters are pretty tough, ran it through the washing machine, and it still works!

[Chip NoVaMac]

Any help for us "lost" Treo 650 users on importing MP3's?