It used to be a lot easier to create custom ringtones out of your favourite song. The interface was conveniently located in iTunes and it was very easy to use.
However, in the latest version of iTunes, Apple made the interface much harder to access. It’s still possible, but it’s now quite cumbersome to do it.
There is a little used feature in Garageband (which comes on every Mac and iOS device) that allows you to easily make ringtones out of your favourite songs, and even create a custom ringtone out of funny sounds or basically anything else.
In this guide we’re going to show you how to change your ringtone the normal way, and then how to create new ringtones with Garageband.
How to Change Your Ringtone
Within the basic ringtone functions on your iPhone, there is already an option to download ringtones from iTunes, and to change your ringtone to one of the built-in, conventional tones.
Follow these steps to change your ringtone:
1. Open up the Settings app, and tap on the Sounds section.
2. Here, you can select from a bunch of different pre-loaded ringtones. If you navigate to the bottom of the page, you’ll find a bunch more ringtones under ‘Classic’.
5. Here you’ll find a ton of different ringtones organized into Featured Tones and Charts. You can typically find any song you would want a ringtone out of, and buy it for under $2.
6. Back in the Sounds section, you can also tap Download All Purchased Tones. This will download any tone that you’ve ever bought with your Apple ID. The tone will then appear amongst all of the Apple tones.
This is how you will download and purchase tones most of the time. Sometimes, users end up wanting a tone that the
Store simply doesn’t have; an uncommon song or even just a funny noise that you’ve found.
Or, you may want to write your own ringtone music and use that!
How to Make a Custom Ringtone on GarageBand
In order to make a completely customized ringtone, you’ll need to download GarageBand. The standard version of GarageBand is completely free for anyone with an Apple ID. Just go to the App Store and download it.
Once you’ve downloaded GarageBand, follow these steps:
1. Tap to open the GarageBand app.
2. In order to use the full editor, you need to go through a few steps. Tap on Smart Piano or Alchemy Synth.
3. Now, tap the red Record button. Once you’re recording, play a few notes on the piano. Doesn’t matter what, you’ll be deleting it shortly. Tap on the Stop button when you’re done.
10. When you tap on the audio file, it will show two edges; you can drag these around to select your favourite part of the song. Ringtones can only be 30 seconds long, so you must trim it accordingly.
11. Once the song is the appropriate length, and you’re satisfied with it, you can export it to be a ringtone. Unfortunately, you can’t do this right from the editor. Tap on the My Songs button in the top left hand corner.
16. You can immediately choose to set it as your standard ringtone (when someone calls you) your standard text tone (when you get a text message) or you can assign the ringtone to a contact. For this example, we’ll assign the tone to a contact.
You can follow this same process but use recorded sounds or even build your own song from the ground up using GarageBand.
How to Delete a Custom Ringtone
If at some point, you want to delete the ringtone you’ve made, you can do so, but it’s not very intuitive. You cannot simply delete it from the Sounds settings page, you have to go back into GarageBand to do it.
Follow these steps:
1. Open up GarageBand. Tap and hold the project file.
6. That ringtone will no longer be available to use.
While custom ringtones are very much a supported feature, the interface and the steps it requires to use them are quite clunky. Hopefully Apple gives the ringtone capabilities a little love in some future update!
