Brief Guide to Creating Your Own Ringtones - Required Software

As I mentioned earlier, to create a ringtone, we need a digital audio editing software suite. Surely, if you're a mixing enthusiast and/or audiophile then chances are you already have your own collection of utilities. However, for the purpose of this brief guide, we need to assume that you don’t have one. That’s why we will bring a few freeware suggestions that will do the job really well.

In this case, I think, it is quite important to choose a freeware audio editing utility because it’d be pointless and definitely overkill purchasing a software suite just for this trivial task. Yes, it’s trivial. Considering the hundreds of functions usually supported by the kind of audio editing software you buy, what we need to do is just one drop of water in an ocean.

Oh, and before we enumerate the freeware applications, don’t forget that if you own the entire Ahead Nero Burning Rom CD creation and authoring software suite, you should check out its Nero Wave Editor. On the other hand, if you really want to purchase an audio editing tool, then I’d say check out Sonic Foundry’s Sound Forge series. I have worked with a few. They rock.

Moving onwards, here’s the list (in alphabetical order): AnalogFX 3.0, Audacity, Mp3splt, Traverso DAW, Wavosaur, and if you are running Linux, not Windows, then along with Audacity and Traverso DAW (which are cross-platform) you may want to try Sweep (GNU/Linux and BSD only). They all support waveform previewing and all of the necessary actions (cut/copy/paste) along with additional filters, effects, and DSP tools.

All you have to do now is pick one. Be sure to check out the features of each; who knows, you might want to do something more advanced in the future. Also, to help you make this decision, I’m attached some screen shots of their main interfaces.

(Main Interface of Traverso DAW—Image Courtesy of Traverso)

For the purpose of this article, I have chosen Wavosaur. It’s small, barely 500kB, and most importantly, it requires no installation at all. Yet, it is amazingly feature-laden. Nevertheless, this shouldn’t “influence” your decision. It was just my choice.

(Main Interface of Wavosaur—Image Courtesy of Wavosaur)

(Main Interface of Audacity—Image Courtesy of Audacity)

(Main Interface of AnalogFX—Image Courtesy of AnalogFX)

All of the screen shots above exemplify one of the features that our task requires: waveform previewing. This is the feature that makes our task so easy; otherwise you might be required to listen to your source audio file more than a few times until you are able to pick the right timing to make your ringtone start when your favorite part or refrain begins.

With the help of waveforms, it is often enough to listen only once to the track. Then you can “see” when your favorite part begins and ends. As a result, you will know which part you want. But this is for the next chapter. Read on!

Next: Doing the Job >>
 

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