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Ringtones using Garageband 3

R

raeadhani

macrumors newbie
Original poster
I used to have a bookmark to a site that explains how to make ringtones using the versions of GB newer than the version 4, but it seems to have gotten deleted.

Does anyone happen to know anywhere that I can find these instructions? Or perhaps can post them up here as a quick post?
 
Quick Instructions

(1) Open Garageband I know your not stupid, This is just for future readers who may be... xD

(2) Make a new project, and call it what you want the ringtone to be called

(3) drag a song into the garageband window from the Finder.

(4) press the "c" key. A little yellow strip should appear at the top of the editing window. This is how much of the song with be made into a ringtone.

(5) In the measure counter, click on the musical note and then click on "time" from the pop-up menu.

(6) Drag a small section on the bar at the top where the yellow strip is located to the desired piece of the song.

(7) Click play to hear the section you selected and then adjust it to something less than 40 seconds.

(8) Once you have what you want, click on the file menu "Share"

(9) Then click send ringtone to iTunes.

A progress bar should indicate activity and once completed, should open iTunes and show up in you "Ringtones" section.


NOTE I don't think this works with DRM Music from iTunes. But MP3s and most other standard audio formats should work (With exception of WMAs)

I hope that Helped. 😉

---Hammy
 
Thanks for the instructions!

I can get the song sent to itunes, using these instructions, but they do not show up as ringtones, they show up as just another song.

Looking at the file, they have an extension of .aif
Changing the extension seems to not work for making that into a ringtone. Is there something that I'm doing wrong that would make it save as that type of file?
 
raeadhani said:
Thanks for the instructions!

I can get the song sent to itunes, using these instructions, but they do not show up as ringtones, they show up as just another song.

Looking at the file, they have an extension of .aif
Changing the extension seems to not work for making that into a ringtone. Is there something that I'm doing wrong that would make it save as that type of file?
Click to expand...

you need garageband 4.something. make sure to run the software updater. and when you send the track to iTunes make sure you click "send ringtone to itunes" not "send song to iTunes"

PS: make sure that in preferences in iTunes you check the box for ringtones.
 
tuffluffjimmy said:
you need garageband 4.something. make sure to run the software updater. and when you send the track to iTunes make sure you click "send ringtone to itunes" not "send song to iTunes"

PS: make sure that in preferences in iTunes you check the box for ringtones.
Click to expand...

Software updater doesn't work to update from 3 to 4.. you have to buy the newest version to get it.

I know having GB 4 helps but I also know there is a way to do it with GB 3 because I've done it before. It's just been so long ago that I don't recall the details.
 
raeadhani said:
I know having GB 4 helps but I also know there is a way to do it with GB 3 because I've done it before. It's just been so long ago that I don't recall the details.
Click to expand...

Your are right. I did a little tinkering, and I found that the ringtone is saved in the m4r format. This is exactly the same as m4a. So if you can save you 40 sec or less song file in that format (M4A) than you can change the extention. This will work. It worked for me and it works for Audio files that you want to be audiobooks. The only difference between m4b (Audiobook) and m4a (Audio) is really the letter at the end and the fact that m4bs save the spot where you are playing in the file. This works for ringtones too!

Try that...😉
 
hammyonmac said:
Your are right. I did a little tinkering, and I found that the ringtone is saved in the m4r format. This is exactly the same as m4a. So if you can save you 40 sec or less song file in that format (M4A) than you can change the extention. This will work. It worked for me and it works for Audio files that you want to be audiobooks. The only difference between m4b (Audiobook) and m4a (Audio) is really the letter at the end and the fact that m4bs save the spot where you are playing in the file. This works for ringtones too!

Try that...😉
Click to expand...


How do I save it in the m4r format? As I mentioned before, when I save mine, they are saving with an .aif extension. I'm sure Im doing something simple to have it save in an odd format, I'm just not sure what is is...
 
raeadhani said:
How do I save it in the m4r format? As I mentioned before, when I save mine, they are saving with an .aif extension. I'm sure Im doing something simple to have it save in an odd format, I'm just not sure what is is...
Click to expand...

I'm using GarageBand 3.0.5. Instead of sending the song to iTunes, hit the send to disk option (Desktop is easiest location). It will output as a .m4a and then you can just change the "a" to an "r" and when you open it in iTunes it will go into the Ringtones list. Worked for me.

I know you can make the ringtone for like 40 seconds, but how long does the phone actually ring for?
 
M0bile said:
I'm using GarageBand 3.0.5. Instead of sending the song to iTunes, hit the send to disk option (Desktop is easiest location). It will output as a .m4a and then you can just change the "a" to an "r" and when you open it in iTunes it will go into the Ringtones list. Worked for me.

I know you can make the ringtone for like 40 seconds, but how long does the phone actually ring for?
Click to expand...

I also tried this in 3.0.5 (or .4) and it worked. Sounds lke maybe the OP attempt was too long? If the ringtone is too long it will not sync.

The phone will ring until the call goes to voicemail. I think the length of time for that to occur is variable and you can set it up with AT&T (at least that is the way it worked for Sprint).
 
raeadhani said:
How do I save it in the m4r format? As I mentioned before, when I save mine, they are saving with an .aif extension. I'm sure Im doing something simple to have it save in an odd format, I'm just not sure what is is...
Click to expand...

Are you using the "Share" menu? Go there and select the save to disk option. Use the little blue down arrow which displays the browse disks option and unselect the "Hide Extension" check box at the bottom. The extension should be .m4a

Once you have saved it you can go to the finder and select the name to edit it and change the extension to .m4r You will be asked if you want to keep that change or revert to .m4a Accept the change. Now you can double click the ringtone and it will open in iTunes in the ringtone section. Check the length of the ringtone there. It appears you can not edit the length in iTunes so if it is too long you need to adjust it in GarageBand. I had to do this to get a ringtone that was short enough that it would sync to the phone.
 
Do You Have This?!?

Do you have this option? This is what you need to find in garageband. or use another method.... ok?
 

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ok i followed the instructions to hit share in garageband and export to disk and then rename it to m4r.... it works, but in garageband my ringtone is about 38 seconds but in itunes its about 42 seconds with the last 4 seconds being dead air... how do i get rid of this? i tried clicking options to change the length of the ringtone in itunes and it won't allow that...
 
heyp said:
ok i followed the instructions to hit share in garageband and export to disk and then rename it to m4r.... it works, but in garageband my ringtone is about 38 seconds but in itunes its about 42 seconds with the last 4 seconds being dead air... how do i get rid of this? i tried clicking options to change the length of the ringtone in itunes and it won't allow that...
Click to expand...

open it in quicktime pro and trim it down.
 
i don't have quicktime pro unfortunately... any other options? it seems that this is happening in the mixdown in garageband after i click share to disk
 
heyp said:
i don't have quicktime pro unfortunately... any other options? it seems that this is happening in the mixdown in garageband after i click share to disk
Click to expand...

drag the little purple arrow at the top of the timeline that signifies the end of a song to where you want your ringtone to end.
 
bstpierre said:
Are you using the "Share" menu? Go there and select the save to disk option. Use the little blue down arrow which displays the browse disks option and unselect the "Hide Extension" check box at the bottom. The extension should be .m4a

Once you have saved it you can go to the finder and select the name to edit it and change the extension to .m4r You will be asked if you want to keep that change or revert to .m4a Accept the change. Now you can double click the ringtone and it will open in iTunes in the ringtone section. Check the length of the ringtone there. It appears you can not edit the length in iTunes so if it is too long you need to adjust it in GarageBand. I had to do this to get a ringtone that was short enough that it would sync to the phone.
Click to expand...


Thanks
This one worked for me
 
hammyonmac said:
Do you have this option? This is what you need to find in garageband. or use another method.... ok?
Click to expand...

Well... that was the point to posting in the first place.. to find another method. I did mention that I didnt have that option because I was using GB 3, not GB 4. version 3 doesn't have that option. Thanks anyway, it got figured out. :apple:
 
Poop! It didn't work for me.

I got this message and I did the "share" to my desktop and tried to rename the file. Now what? 🙂

273433562ce797e1d6108aa5ce13323afa24848.jpg
 
I am having the same problem with dead space at the end

Thank you for your exchange, I was able to create a ringtone with my garageband 3 but I also have a problem with in garageband my ringtone is about 38 seconds but in itunes its about 42 seconds with the last 4 seconds being dead air... how do i get rid of this? i tried clicking options to change the length of the ringtone in itunes and it won't allow that...

In response #15 you instructed him to go to the purple arrow and signify where I want the song to end. In which program is this and where is the purple arrow come from? Thanks again for all of the info and I hope this is an easy one.
 
It worked for me!

hammyonmac said:
Quick instructions...

(1) Open Garageband I know your not stupid...
[...]
I hope that Helped. 😉

---Hammy
Click to expand...

This worked for me quite easily with GarageBand (v5.1). I just "Shared -> Send Ringtone to iTunes" and synced my iPhone.
Thanks!
 
Purple Arrow & Dead Air

I was able to get everything working EXCEPT I also seem to have extra dead air at the beginning or end of my ringtones. I found the purple arrow (end marker) within Garage Band, but I can't seem to get it to go to the left of about 14 seconds... and some of my ringtones a much shorter than that... thus creating the unwanted dead air space. I tried moving the audio to the right, but that only made the dead space happen before the audio instead of after it. Does anyone have any suggestions? Help would be much appreciated!
 
One More Thing

I have Quicktime Pro and other programs that will allow me to shorter the length of the audio, but I'm not sure what type of file to save it as after it's been through (yet) another program. Putting it through Quicktime (or Peak) seems to change the file so that I can no longer import it into the ringtones within iTunes. Thanks for any help in advance... Please also read my last post about the Purple Arrow and dead air though.
 
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