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Using “Windows Movie Maker”, you can create your own ringtones for free. Here’s how to do it. Please note that you can click all the images below and they should open in a new window so that you can see the image better.

STEP 1 – Open Windows Movie Maker

Click on the following:

“Start Button” – “All Programs” – “Accessories” – “Entnertainment” – “Windows Movie Maker”

STEP 2 – Import a song

To import a song that you want to convert into a ringtone go to the following menu:

“File” – “Import into Collection”

Then, search for the song that you want to use as a ringtone. This can be an MP3 or a WMA file, as well as various other formats of music. The format just depends on how you copied the music to your computer. For example, Windows Media Player tends to copy music as WMA file types, and MusicMatchJukebox tends to use MP3 file types.

Once you’ve found your song, select it, and click “Import”

STEP 3 – Add to “Storyboard”

Once you’ve added your song to the “Collection”, you should see it at the top (Item 1 in the image below). Select this song, and drag it to the bottom of your window, onto the “Audio/Music” track of your “Storyboard“.

You should see it at the bottom of your screen (Item 6 in the image below).

STEP 4 – Edit so that you only hear what you want to

Once you’ve added your music to the storyboard, you can edit it so that you only have what you want to hear. This has 2 benefits:
– It saves space on your phone (perhaps in 2 years time this won’t be necessary)
– More importantly, you can hear a certain section of the song.

Most people only want the chorus or intro to a song, for example. Here’s how to get that:

– Listen to the song by pressing play on the right of your screen (Item 4 in the first image above).
– Take a note of the time of the start of your section (0, if it’s the beginning), and the time of the end of your song. You can see the time at the top of your storyboard (Item 5 in the first image above). If you want a more exact time, you can zoom in using the Magnifying glass at the top-left of the storyboard section (Item 3 in the first image above).
– At the end of your Audio Track you should see a sort of triangle pointing left (Item 7 in the first image above, on the right). Click on that triangle, hold your mouse button down, and drag it to the end of your section that you just took a note of above (watching the time at the top of the Storyboard). Below is what it looks like while I’m doing that:

– If the beginning of the section you want is not the beginning of the song, do the same with dragging the beggining “triangle” to the start of the section you want. The image below shows me selecting the new start of my track (after having zoomed in a little using the magnifying glass).

As you can see in the image below, my selection is floating somewhere around the 20 second mark.

This obviously won’t work, as I want the ringtone to start as soon as my phone start ringing. So, to move it to the beginning, just drag it to the start of your Storyboard. Below is what it looks like after this:

STEP 5 – Save your new Ringtone

Now, all you have to do is save. On the left of “Windows Movie Maker” under “Finish Movie“, click “Save to my computer”. Just choose a place on your computer that you will remember, and save it using a name that you will remember.

Unfortunately, “Windows Movie Maker” saves audio files using the WMA format and not the MP3 format, so if your phone can only play MP3 ringtones, then you will have to use the next step (in a new article) to convert the WMA file to MP3. But, if you are the proud owner of an iMate (or similar) device that uses the “Windows Mobile” operating system, you can start using your new ringtone almost straight away. You can follow the instructions here to upload and use your new ringtone: “iMate Ringtones – kJam Example“

So, if you want free ringtones for your cellphone, then you’ve come to the right place. And, after ALL those ads you’ve seen promising free ringtones, and cheap ringtones, etc. WHY would you come here? Well, my ringtones are definitely free. Reason: you probably already have them on your computer already.

Ok, so I’m talking about MP3s. But it’s REALLY easy to create MP3 ringtones. This does mean that your phone has to be able to use MP3 ringtones, but I’d say that most phones do by now.

So, in this “create your own MP3 ringtone” series, you will need the following:

1 – Windows XP (Not sure if you need Windows XP Professional)
2 – Due to step 1, you should have “Windows Movie Maker” – Go to “Start => All Programs => Accessories => Entertainment”
3 – An Mp3 or 2. If you don’t have any yet, I’ll tell you in the next post how to create one, or, you can check out the link below
4 – A cellphone that can use MP3 ringtones.

If you’d like a cheap and easy way to get free or cheap MP3s, take a look at my post entitled “Free MP3s – Cheap Music” for details about a site where you can download MP3s. It’s subscription based, but you get 25 free downloads if you try it out… Sounds better than iTunes in my opinion (and 1/4 of the price).

And away we go…

UPDATE: If you have an MP3 and you would like to create your ringtone, check out my new tutorial on how to do this on Windows XP: “Creating your free ringtones”

If you want to put personal ringtones on your iMate kJam, then I thought I would show you with this. It would appear that a lot of people are coming to this site after reading about getting an iMate kJam, and I just wanted to help you out.

This is for those people who want to put one of the following types of ringtones onto their phone:
– Midi Ringtones
– Polyphonic Ringtones
– MP3 Ringtones
– WMA Ringtones

And, this doesn’t matter if you’ve got free ringtones, cheap ringtones or EVEN really expensive, over the top, over priced ringtones. Heck, I’ll even show you how to make YOUR OWN ringtones soon with Windows XP.

Anyway, here’s how to put your ringtone onto your iMate kJam:

1 – Connect your iMate kJam to your PC/Laptop with the USB cable
2 – Open up Windows Explorer
3 – Find your ringtone
4 – Copy your ringtone (Ctrl-c, for example)
5 – In Windows Explorer, go to “Mobile Device”
6 – Select “My Windows Mobile-Based Device”
7 – Go to “Application Data – Sounds”
8 – Paste Your Ringtone here (Ctrl-v, for example)

You can unplug your kJam now

9 – On your kJam, go to “Start => Settings => Phone”
10 – Select your Ringtone from the “Ring tone:” drop down list

Just remember, you could just have the coolest ringtones around. 😉

If you have any questions, you can ask them below, and hopefully I can help. If you would like ideas on getting MP3 Ringtones, take a look at this post: “Free Ringtones – You already have them”

And take a look here for an idea on how to get “Free MP3s – Cheap Music“