I recently upgraded my phone to a model that lets me download some nifty ringtones. The problem I have is that I am the kind of person who would change a ringtone daily. If ringtones cost about a buck a tune for a snippet that is 10 seconds or less, I could be poor by the end of the week!
I tried to upload my own songs but Sprint doesn’t allow it. You supposedly have to buy songs from their store. But after doing some research through the internet, I found a completely free program that allows my phone to play ringtones I’ve created- all free beyond your normal access charges.
Make sure you don’t break any copyright laws by using this method. Although they are a little hard to understand, it comes down to this: don’t sell the ringtone for profit, make sure you legally own the song you use, and don’t play the ringtone AND the song you got it from at the same time on two different machines. I would refer to this article for clarity, but that’s the nuts and bolts of it.
Before I show you how to do it, you must know that it doesn’t work for every phone model or phone plan. I have an M520 with Sprint and the system works fine. But there is a chance the free ringtone program won’t work for you. However, if it does, you can be up all night creating free ringtones!
The first step is to enable your phone to get downloads and have internet access. Your phone will receive these free ringtones via a secure website, so if you don’t have internet access through your phone, you will be out of luck!
Next, go to a website like mobilereelz.com. There are other sites that can help you make ringtones, but mobilereelz.com was the easiest one I could find. I got it through the Sprint Users Forum. I would suggest going to your phone company’s forum to find sites that have similar free ringtone programs. Yet mobilereelz.com can work for ANY company.
The next step is to select your song. I would make a special folder of songs you want to use for ringtones. On mobilereelz.com, you just click the first button and you can upload a song from any folder. Make sure it is an MP3 or else it won’t work properly.
Once your song is uploaded, it will automatically play. You MUST pay attention to this if you plan to use the beginning of your song for the free ringtone! If not, you will miss out on the part you want to select.
After your song is loaded and playing, use the embedded player to find the part you want for a ringtone. When you find the beginning, click the left bracket button that looks like this: [. When it reaches the end of the part you want to use, click the end bracket that looks like this : ]. It will then automatically play the selection you want as a free ringtone.
When you are finished creating your free ringtone, fill in the info blocks on the right. Be sure to select the correct format. Most phones use M4A or QCP. Include your cell phone number (area code and no dashes), your mobile carrier, and then hit the “convert and send” button. Voila! You have created your tone!
It may take anywhere from minutes to a couple of hours for your ringtone to arrive at your cell phone in the form of a text message. That all depends on your phone company and how quickly they send text messages. Once it arrives, click on the message and select whatever option allows you to download the file from your phone. For my Samsung M520 it is “go”. Once the file is downloaded, you can either place it in your ringtones folder or select it as a ringer automatically. Again, that depends on what model phone you have.
Have fun creating your free ringtones!
