In the age of bespoke suits, cars with more options than a well heeled banker and 73 different types of lettuce available at Tesco, it’s only fitting that your blower gives off an air of individuality. Splash out a few quid on a crazy frog? Nah, do it yourself instead. Here’s how…
What’s the point?
It’ll stop your mobile sounding like everyone else’s, let you show off with your own creations and never pay for a ringtone again.
Is it free?
As a bird.
Sold! How do I do it?
Step 1: If your mobile’s got a ringtone creation app it’s tempting to use it, but the results will make your ears bleed and trigger giggles from bystanders on the bus. Instead, get hold of music creation software for PC or Mac and let your creativity flow properly.
Macs come pre-loaded with Apple’s Garage Band, which is perfect for knocking together a proper song, while PC users have plenty of options. Check out Ringtone Composer, It’ll help you create your own tunes, or convert MIDI files for your mobile.
Save your creations as a .MID or .MP3 file for the best quality multi-channel sound.
Step 2: Can’t summon the creative juices? No problem, fire up iTunes, slip in your favourite CD and hit ‘Import’ making sure you’ve set the program to import songs as MP3s under ‘Preferences’, ‘Advanced’ and ‘Importing’.
It’ll take a few seconds but once it’s ripped the song you can transfer it to your phone and use proper music as your ring signal for free! Find the file by right clicking on it in iTunes, choosing ‘Get info’ and looking under the ‘Summary’ tab to see where it’s saved.
Step 3: Once your ringtones are ready you’ll need to slap them on your mobile. Connect it to your computer with the USB cable that came in the box. Hook it up to your PC or Mac and select ‘Mass storage’ when it asks about modes.
If you’re running Windows open My Computer and double click the phone. If you’re in Mac land just double click the disk icon that appears on the desktop. Copy over your MP3 or MID files before right-clicking on the disk icon and choosing eject. Now you can whip the cable out and go back to using your handset as normal.
Step 4: The last step is to choose your creation as the current ringtone. Head to the ‘Settings’ menu under the ‘Tools’ section and hit ‘General’ followed by ‘Personalisation’. Scroll down to ‘Tones’ and select your new noise under ‘Ringing tone’.
Step 5: The likes of the E90 and N95 have 3D ringtone effects built in too. Head to ‘Tools’ and ‘3D Tones’ to apply special effects to your ringtones. It works especially well with MP3s. Just think, and E90 with a Welcome to the Jungle ringtone – so wrong, it’s just gotta be done. Guaranteed to bring any dull meeting to its sha-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-knees, knees!