How to make free iPhone ringtones on Mac & Windows with iTunes

Guys, can you bear it to pay Apple $1 for a song and then $1 extra to "make" it a 40 sec iPhone ringtone? If not, let's just start exporing our way to creat free iPhone ringtones by ourself.

DIY free iPhone ringtones by using nothing more than iTunes 8

iPhone ringtones are generally .m4r tracks 40 seconds or less in duration. Here this tutorial takes Windows PC for example, but the method goes the same way for Mac users.

Step 1. Go to iTunes “Preferences”, set AAC as the Import Encoder and make sure the bit rate is 128kbps.

Here to set the encoder to AAC and the bit rate to 128kbps.

Step 2. Return to your library and select the song you want to make into a ringtone, (if the song is DRM-protected .m4p, use this Protected Music Converter to strip DRM license). Right click on the song and press “Get Info”. Then tab the “Option” to set the duration to a maximum of 40 seconds.

Set the 'Start Time' and 'Stop Time' to the appropriate interval that you like the best - remember that the length can only be a maximum of 40 seconds. When you're done, hit OK.

Step 3. Back in the library, right-click on that song and click "Create AAC version". The conversion will begin and result in an AAC copy of that song clipped to the duration which you previously set.

Right-click on that track and select "Show in Finder" and drag it onto the Desktop. Remove that track from iTunes library (right-click -> Delete). Rename the track on the desktop from "track name.m4a" to "track name.m4r". You will be prompted to confirm the change of extension from ".m4a" to ".m4r". Click "Use .m4r".

Double-click on the new .m4r file and it will be added into iTunes as a ringtone which can be synced to your iPhone. You can now trash the .m4r file on your desktop.

NOTE: Remember to set the start and stop times of the original MP3 file back to the initial settings, if not the song will only play the designated 40 second loop.

Creat free iPhone ringtones with all-in-one iPhone ringtone maker

There are piles of 3rd party iPhone ringtone makers on Google, some are just slim as a .m4r converter, some are integrated with added function like syncing to iPhone or iTunes, with them you can creat you own ringtones from whatever music or video file.

The picked one for Windows user here is this specific iPhone Ringtone Maker, besides converting all the regular music formats like (.aac; .mp3; .m4a; .wma; .wav; .aiff; .ac3; .ogg; .ape etc) into iPhone ringtone .m4r, it can also extract background audio from video movie files (like .mp4; .wmv; .asf; .mpg; .3gp; .flv; .mov; avi; DVD.vob; h.264; HD.m2ts; .tp; .trp; .ts ) and then convert them into .m4r.

And Mac-based users, you might have heard the iRinger, right?

Have fun with your lovly iPhone, iPhone 3G, or the fashion-leading iPhone 3G S!

You might also like to check for even more "How-To" transfer the DRM protected music, video, movie to media devices like iPod, iPhone, Zune, PSP, Xbox 360, PS3, Creative Zen, Archos, Sansa, Iriver, Samsung, Cowon, Sony Walkman, as well as mobile phones like HTC, Blackberry, Sony Erricsson, LG, Nokia, Motorola, etc.