iPhone Ringtones, with GarageBand and iTunes Plus.

Posted on October 1st, 2008. Written by Arron.

With the introduction of iTunes 7.7, Apple announced their iPhone ringtone service which consisted of you paying an extra 99 cents on top of the 99 cents it cost you originally to buy the full song. For that, you could pick your own section of an iTunes song you already own to serve as your ringtone. The idea being, for $1.99, you got both. Both a 40 second ringtone and the full track to listen to …

… But, there is another way …

Normally when buying tracks from the iTunes Music Store, your buying protected music, music which is encased in intelligent digital protection called ‘DRM’ or Digital Rights Management. However, when you buy a track in Apple’s ‘iTunes Plus’ format (the alternative format Apple offer), your paying for a track which has been stripped of this DRM casing. This means that not only can the bought track be played on an Apple iPod, but on any other media player in the world.

While I understand this method is quite well-known by now, I have had a few people e-mail me recently asking the same thing, and so I thought it warranted an article:

Where and how can I get ‘free’ ringtones for my iPhone?

Now lets just get the legal out of the way first (as I don’t want to be sued -_-). These are not free ringtones, however, this method does save you from spending $0.99 extra with iTunes in order to obtain a ringtone. The workaround uses a program built into Mac OSX called, GarageBand.

The Process:

Step 01 – Purchasing a track
First off, you’ll need to find or buy a track in iTunes ‘Plus’ format. You’ll be able to tell if an album or track is in the ‘Plus’ format by looking for the plus symbol Apple attach to them on iTunes (as below):

Once you’ve got one, We’re going to open Garageband. Whether your new to Mac, or not, you may or may not be familiar with what Garageband actually is, or what it offers to you. So I’d like to briefly outline just exactly what it is capable of. Garageband is Apple designed software and it’s purpose is to give you access to studio-standard abilities. For example, you can plug a guitar or keyboard into it, and digitally record the output. With; arrangements, multi-take recordings, visual EQ, automation of EQ and extensive ‘Jam packs’ – It has it all.

Step 02 – Adding our track

Once open, you’ll notice Garageband offers a few ways to start use it. We want the first one ‘Create New Music Project’.

Ignore the next screen which appears, and just click ‘Create’.

Importing our song is just a click and drag away. You’ll notice on the bottom right corner of the GB interface we have two buttons, an information button, and a media grabber. We want the media grabber button.

You’ll now notice you have access to your entire iTunes music library, as a source. Next, find the track you want and simply drag and drop it onto the Garageband timeline. Give it a few seconds and the whole track will be rendered.

Note: Garageband will not convert or import DRM protected tracks. You must use an unprotected MP3 or iTunes Plus formatted track.

Step 03 – Cutting
For this example I’m going to use the track ‘Dust’ by Royworld. Once your track has rendered, we’re going to goto the top menu and select Share > Send Ringtone to iTunes. Don’t worry, we’re not sending the whole song to iTunes, as GB will alert us to the fact that the track needs to be 40 seconds or less, in order to be imported (as seen below).

After adjusting the length, you’ll now see you have a yellow cursor above your song selection. This bar determines the length of your ringtone. You can drag it along the top bar to cut out any part of your song. Once your happy, export it.

Step 04 – Exporting
Exporting your newly-made ringtone is as easy as selecting Share > Send Ringtone to iTunes.

Congratulations, you no longer have pay for ringtones from iTunes.
Simply buy your music from the store in iTunes Plus, and away you go!

If this helped, feel free to leave a comment below.