“With GarageBand 4.1.1 you can export your original song, your original audio recordings, or use Apple Loops and iLife jingles to create a custom ringtone for your iPhone,” Apple’s support article #307108 states.
Here’s what you need:
• GarageBand 4.1.1 or later
• iTunes 7.5 or later
• iPhone with software version 1.1.2 or later
To create a custom ringtone:
1. Set up a cycle region that covers the area you wish to use in the GarageBand song. Note: This area must be 40 seconds or less in length.
2. Once the cycle area has been set, choose Share > Send Ringtone to iTunes.
More info here.
MacDailyNews Note: We just tested this with an MP3 and it worked to create a new free ringtone in iTunes that syncs and works with our iPhones.
Uhhh…. what if my loop happened to be a real song I’d loaded into Garage Band?
I wonder if this is a workaround to put copyrighted ringtones on our iPhones? Will have to investigate….
Do let us know your results. This could be big!
If it’s a real song it works just fine. At least as reported by ArsTechnica. You can’t use iTunes purchased songs though.
just Audio Hijack a protected track, save and import into GarageBand and you’re in business making a custom ringtone out of whatever you want!
Ah, that seems like reasonable drawback to protect the record companies. Although, I bet you can use something like Audio Hijack or other software to record the output while playing the song. Then you can make your free ringtone.
Wow, same wavelength much?
So strip the DRM but buring and ripping. Viola, a drm-free digital file.
“Viola, a drm-free digital file.”
Just leave room for cello.
Yup, and I’m sure Apple is aware of that loophole too. I think I’ll go find a Universal song in my library and use it as a ringtone for someone I don’t like.
Cool! Most of my music, and pretty much everyone else’s I believe, is ripped from CDs anyway. For those that aren’t, fine, I’ll pony up the extra 99¢.
Apple adding on new features to the iPhone via a simple software update is what is going to bring the masses to the Macintosh platform. The average non-Mac using consumer will $h!t themselves when they see this happening. They are used to products declining with time, not actually getting better as Apple products do (witness my Cube).
Actually the bigger deal for me than the $.99 is that I can use ProTools to really tweak the file to exactly what I want for a cell phone loop and speaker. It was very disappointing to have to work with the simplistic (lack of) tools iTunes has to make ring tones.
I wrote them and said I’d be happy to pay $.99 to use a track I’d created myself, but never got a response. Maybe this is their way around the issue
It’s all HAPPENin’ NOW Baby!
yeehaw!
Interesting. Didn’t one of the rumor sites, report that this functionality was pulled from Steve’s Keynote? Was it last January, or was it earlier pre-iPhone, which of course doesn’t make sense, but I distinctly remember the rumor. Maybe, I’m getting old!
Inspector Gadget theme song FTW!!!!
@ KenC
I remember something like that also. It’s possible that Apple thought that ringtones should be free, but that they were in negotiations at the time of the release. Then when the content companies refused to do that the Steve stuck them in for .99 while they worked on this later functionality. I mean it seems more likely that they had a contract delay than a technical one with this, as it’s pretty simple stuff.
So I just figured out how to do this by hand last night
See: http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=386620
and now, the good folks at Apple have made it slightly easier. Good going.
So simple, so Apple, so fantastic!!!
Works for me.. My ringtone is now an excerpt from the beginning of Tubular Bells.
-jcr
Another iPhone scam: No rintones using your own music. Sorry folks, Shepherd Jobs has you guys hooked.
What a joke. My Nokia plays whatever I want it to. It “just works”.
“My ringtone is now an excerpt from the beginning of Tubular Bells.”
I think that might make more sense on a Virgin Mobile.
“Viola, a drm-free digital file.”
“Just leave room for cello.”
I fiddled with it last night.
At first I thought I baroque it,
but a minor adjustment
returned it bach like before….
Am I alone in not giving a DAMN about custom ringtones?
There’s an interesting distinction arising here between “real songs” and “iTunes purchased songs.”
I’ve found with iToner I can use full songs (longer than 40 sec) and have no trouble with them as a ringtone.
Here’s my theory about the on-again, off-again saga of iPhone ringtones lockdown:
1. Contract-holders Universal Music and Warner Music lobby strongly to prevent unauthorized ringtones, so that they can be sold and generate more revenue.
2. Apple attempts to negotiate, but eventually complies.
3. When their contracts run out, Universal and then Warner decide not to renew and switch to the “we’ll supply you with our songs month-to-month” basis that, to my knowledge, they currently have with the iTunes Store.
4. Steve Jobs goes to the remaining contract-holding labels Sony/BMG and his DRM-dismissing buds at EMI, and says “Can we ditch the prohibition on ringtones?” They say okay.
5. Unauthorized ringtones are enabled on the iPhone.
6. Universal and Warner complain to Apple that they are violating their contract, until they are reminded that they declined to renew it.