While browsing the iTunes store last night, I noticed that ringtones were a whopping $1.29. $1.29?!?!?!? ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! $1.29 just for a 30 second piece of audio? Hell, full songs are only $0.99!!

There have been ways to make your own ringtones for a long time. I’m going to show you two of these ways. There are simple software-based solutions, both freeware and shareware, but we’re just going to be using iTunes and a few other things.

The first method involves using iTunes to make a new 30-second audio clip from your existing song(s), changing the extension, the adding to your device. The second method is a little more ‘dirty’. We’ll be listening to the 30-second ‘preview’ of a ringtone with an iPhone, recording that ‘preview’ with Audacity, then saving that ‘preview’ in the proper format. By ‘preview’, we mean the 30-second audio that you can listen to for the ringtone. The preview is actually the whole ringtone, so you aren’t going to miss anything when recording.

Method One – iTunes

What you’ll basically be doing is telling iTunes to only listen to 30-seconds of the song of your choice. We’ll then use iTunes’ included exporting options to convert the full song into the 30-second .m4a file. Once that’s done, we’ll be changing the extension from .m4a to .m4r.

So go ahead and open up iTunes. To make sure that your song will be converted into the right format, go to the preferences for iTunes. In the ‘General’ tab, click on ‘Import Settings’. Under ‘Import Using’, make sure ‘AAC Encoder’ is selected. Click ‘OK’ when finished.

Find the song that you want to make a ringtone out of. Right-click on it and go to ‘Get Info’. Go to the ‘Options’ tab. Notice the ‘Start Time’ and ‘Stop Time’ boxes. Edit these numbers to be 30-seconds or less. When done choosing your segment, click on ‘OK’.

Now, right-click on your song once again, and click on ‘Create AAC Version’. iTunes will now make a new version of your song using the 30-second segment you have just chosen.

When it’s done converting, go to your library and find this new 30-second piece of audio. Right-click on it and go to “Show in Finder” (Mac OS X), or “Show in Explorer” (Windows). Change the extensions from .m4a to .m4r.

In Mac OS X, right-click on the file, and go to ‘Get Info’. Click on the arrow next to “Name & Extension”. Change the .m4a to .m4r. Delete this file from your iTunes library (without deleting the actual file if it asks), and drag the .m4r into it.

In Windows, you’ll need to ‘Show extensions for known files’ under the second tab in the ‘Tools’>’Folder Options’ section of any Explorer window (just open up the Recycle Bin and enable extensions). Next, right-click on your file and go to ‘Rename’. Change the.m4a to .m4r. Delete this file from your iTunes library (without deleting the actual file if it asks), and drag the .m4r into it.

You should now see your ringtone under the ‘Ringtones’ section on the left side of iTunes. Sync if up with your device and test it out in Settings>Sounds.

Method two – Going HARDCORE

What you’ll basically be doing, is, while playing the preview of the ringtone on your iPhone, recording it with a freeware program called ‘Audacity’. You’re going to connect your iPhone to your computer via a normal 3.5mm audio cable (looks like this, same connection on each end). Connect one end to your iPhone, and one end into your computer’s microphone port.

So go ahead and install Audacity, if you don’t already have it installed. WINDOWS |  MAC OS X

Next, plug in your iPhone to your computer’s microphone/line-in port. Queue up your ringtone in the iTunes application. Begin recording with Audacity, then being playing back the ringtone. When it’s done, stop the Audacity recording. Trim out the blank portions of the audio.

Go to File>Export. Fill in the tag data if you want. On the next screen, under ‘Format’, choose ‘M4A (AAC) Files’. Give the file a name, and save it to your desktop. It may ask you to install the FFmpeg libraries. Go to Preferences>Libraries, and follow the instructions to install it. When it’s done exporting, close out of Audacity. Now we need to change the extension from .m4a to .m4r.

In Mac OS X, right-click on the file, and go to ‘Get Info’. Click on the arrow next to “Name & Extension”. Change the .m4a to .m4r. Delete this file from your iTunes library (without deleting the actual file if it asks), and drag the .m4r into it.

In Windows, you’ll need to ‘Show extensions for known files’ under the second tab in the ‘Tools’>’Folder Options’ section of any Explorer window (just open up the Recycle Bin and enable extensions). Next, right-click on your file and go to ‘Rename’. Change the.m4a to .m4r. Delete this file from your iTunes library (without deleting the actual file if it asks), and drag the .m4r into it.

You should now see your ringtone under the ‘Ringtones’ section on the left side of iTunes. Sync if up with your device and test it out in Settings>Sounds.

So there you go! A few different and free ways to make your own ringtones.