[Sithtiger]

Hi, I do some work occasionally for a friend and she wants to create ringtones. I don't remember what phone and service she has (I think it's Verizon)....oh and she does have a Motorola phone but I don't know what model. Anyway I Ringtone Maker 2 by Magix. Is this one good?

I was able to make a ringtone, but I don't understand how to send it to a phone. I was going to test it out on my phone. I have a mini USB cable that will connect to the computer but I don't see it listed in the USB devices. I thought you could send the ringtone via a cable. I don't have any software for my phone (Motorola V3c) but then again it doesn't really matter. I think she does. If she doesn't how do I go about downloading them to the phone? I see an option to send the file to an email address.

Oh and what format do cell phones use? Is it mp3 or something else? Thanks in advance!

[JohnWill]

Isn't Verizon the one that locks down the phone so you can't load your own ringtones? I created a couple for my AT&T phone, but they don't do that.

[tomdkat]

I've created a few for my T-Mobile phone and found I couldn't use MP3 files. I had to use WMA files instead. Once I learned how to create clips in WMA format, I've been a ringtone making maniac!

EDIT: I also think Verizon might lock their phones so you can't load your own ringtones.

Peace...

[Sithtiger]

Really.....well I think she's with Verizon and if that's the case then oh well I guess. I have Verizon but I'm not making any ringtones as my phone doesn't have a removable memory card. Thanks for the heads up though!

[JohnWill]

You don't need a removable memory card, my RAZR doesn't have one. However, you do need to be able to access the phone configuration.

[tomdkat]

I know my T-Mobile phone is locked such that I can play MP3s but I can't use them as ringtones. The ringtones I bought from T-Mobile are protected MP3 or WMA files (I forget which) and I can't play them on my computer. I did some digging around online and found out about using WMA files as ringtones and I was able to do so without unlocking my phone or anything.

Peace...

[Deathblow]

Which Phone does she have? Different Verizon phones have different ways of working with ringtones. For mine, I need to e-mail them to the phone, or I could use a cable, but haven't gotten one yet since this is a newish phone for me.

[JohnWill]

Hmm... My wife has T-Mobile, and I loaded ring tones on her RAZR v3 with no issues using the same program and USB cable as for mine. I use Mobtime Phone Tools, though I'm sure the Motorola Phone Tools would probably do it as well.

[cecilep61280]

I actually have verizon and i used to use a program to record songs off my computer. You can only use short clips of the music, but none the less it worked for me. I'll try to locate that software I used, and get back to you. I also had a chocolate phone, so I'm not sure if that made a difference since it used a memory stick. It may have. Does the phone have a memory stick in it?

[tomdkat]

Originally Posted by JohnWill

Hmm... My wife has T-Mobile, and I loaded ring tones on her RAZR v3 with no issues using the same program and USB cable as for mine. I use Mobtime Phone Tools, though I'm sure the Motorola Phone Tools would probably do it as well.

I've got a Nokia 6133 and the ringtones I bought from T-mobile worked as expected. When I used Audacity to create ringtones out of MP3 clips, I was able to transfer them to the phone using Bluetooth and play them usnig the phone's MP3 playback capability but the phone refused to allow me to assign them as ringtones. When I converted those same MP3 files to WMA files and transferred them to my phone, I could assign them as ringtones just fine.

It was at this point I found a WMA file editor (similar to Audacity) I used to edit WMA files directly and then transfer them to my phone using Bluetooth.

Peace...

[JohnWill]

So, the phone uses WMA and not MP3? That's probably why they didn't work.

[tomdkat]

Originally Posted by JohnWill

So, the phone uses WMA and not MP3? That's probably why they didn't work.

I'll have to double check but I believe the ringtones I bought from T-mobile were MP3s. Here is a page that confirms me experience as well. I believe it was a site like this that clued me in to having to do the MP3 to WMA conversion.

Peace...

[JohnWill]

How do you explain this comment?

I loved this phone until I found out that T-Mobile decided to strip mp3 ringtones from it......

[Soundy]

Originally Posted by JohnWill

How do you explain this comment?

Probably didn't STRIP them, probably just limited them.

When I got my Motorola V710, I found that Telus had specifically disabled the ability to copy MP3s to it via the cable, or copying from its MicroSD card to the phone's memory (I could PLAY MP3s from the card, but not copy them to the phone for ringtones).

They blocked the cable transfer by changing one byte of code in the firmware (or having Motorola make it that way), so it reported itself as a V710 instead of a V710m (for "multimedia"), so Motorola Phone Tools would think that the phone wasn't multimedia-capable and thus wouldn't start the multimedia-authoring components or allow transfer of multimedia files. Tweaking that one byte with the SEEM editor fixed that little problem. There were a number of other SEEM hacks out there for the V710 to enable all the MP3/multimedia support.

With my RAZR (V3c) I found it was easy to copy MP3s on, but they weren't visible as ringtones... trick was to use BitPim to delete the ringtone database file, which the phone then rebuilt automatically from the MP3s that were present.

My HTC phone now is an odd bird... I can load MP3s and WMAs as ringtones, but system sounds are mostly WMAs, except for a couple functions, which use WAVs.

Back to the original question: the answer is a very solid, "it depends". Depends first on what the phone supports (some still only support MIDI ringtones), and depends on whether your provider has restricted various filetypes.

Getting them on there depends as well: some let you copy them from a memory card, some require the cable, some will allow you to transfer them in via Bluetooth or send them to yourself by text/MMS message or even email. If using a cable, almost all phones require additional software of some sort. Windows Mobile devices use ActiveSync, Motorolas us Mobile Phone Tools, Palm devices use Palm Desktop, and there are generic apps like DataPilot (demoware) or BitPim (opensource).

[tomdkat]

Originally Posted by JohnWill

How do you explain this comment?

Originally Posted by Soundy

Probably didn't STRIP them, probably just limited them.

Exactly. Come on John, you know people don't always do a good job of describing things well or accurately. Besides, there are other comments on that page that better describe the situation.

Attached is a screenshot of the music files on my phone that I bought from T-mobile and downloaded directly from the T-Zones. They are all in MP3 format. The other screenshot is the properties of my default ringtone.

I browsed my phone using Bluetooth to view the files.

Peace...