How to Make Ringtones Longer

With the number of cell phone users growing, the need for ringtones is growing as well. All one has to do is search for them on the internet and hundreds of ringtone sites will come up. Some are ringtone sales sites, others are ringtone sharing sites. Even more, people will find web sites that are used to create ringtones. In addition to that, cell phone service providers like AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and others have download services that offer ringtones for sale.

The availability of ringtones gives cell phone users of all ages and interests the opportunity to log into their phone and make it unique and functional. By unique and functional, customers can use their favorite songs, strange sounds, or outrageous noises to make statements about themselves. Also, when users associate a particular ringtone with someone in their contact list, the cell phone user can tell who is calling in without having to look at the phone. Besides, songs and sounds with special meaning are great to use because they touch the cell phone user’s emotions.

While most of the efforts involving ringtones involve procuring them and setting them up on a cell phone, not many editing options are available for making ringtones longer. This procedure is possible and is described below.

Basic Concepts

How to Make Ringtones Longer In the event a user finds that a ringtone long enough, the user can take necessary steps to lengthen it. For the purpose of this procedure, assume that the ringtone that is too short is on a cell phone in mp3 format. Retrieve the file from the cell phone, modify the file, and then upload the file back to the cell phone.

Connecting the cell phone to a computer is done by either a Bluetooth wireless connection (both the phone and the computer must have Bluetooth enabled), by USB cable connection, or via an email from the cell phone (the phone will need internet access to do this). While many software programs can modify this ringtone, the procedure described uses Adobe Soundbooth CS4. The general principle, however, applies to any sound editor program.

Making a ringtone longer by time stretching the file

Open the ringtone file in Adobe Soundbooth.
See how long the ringtone file is. You can tell this by going to the end of the file and reading the value from the timer display. For the purpose of this discussion, assume that the ringtone is 25 seconds long and the user wants a 30 second file. This means that the user will add 5 seconds to the file.
From the “Processes” menu, select “Change pitch and Timing.” This displays the “Pitch and Timing” window.
In this window, “Current Duration” is how long the ringtone is now (25 seconds). “New Duration” is the modified length of the file. Grab the “Time Stretch” slider and drag it to the right until the value under “New Duration” is 30 seconds. Users can also enter the new duration time by clicking “New Duration” and entering 30 seconds there.
The software processes the file and is now ready to preview. The file is now 30 seconds long.
Save and upload the ringtone back to the cell phone.

Making a ringtone longer by adding to the file

Sometimes the ringtone file is so short that stretching it will result in a file that sounds strange. In this case, users will want to add content to the ringtone to make it 30 seconds long. Suppose a user needs to convert a 10 minute clip to 30 seconds without using the time stretch function. In this case, the user has a couple options:

Copy the existing clip and append it to the original file twice. This will play the original clip three times every time the ringtone is played. To do this, select the sound and copy it to the clipboard. Place the cursor at the end of the file and paste twice. Save, preview, and upload the file to the cell phone.
Open one or more other files and create a mix. This is involves taking other sounds and adding them to the clip to make it 30 seconds long. The options for doing this are innumerable. Programs like Soundbooth provide for the mixing of multiple sounds and files. Just load in the files, add some tracks and mix them together with the array of professional sound tools that are available in Adobe Soundbooth.

Although this type of procedure is new to some users, practice will make perfect. In fact, users who are interested in creating ringtones for sale should focus on learning how to use all the features of advanced sound editing programs.

The procedure above shows how a user can extend the length of a cell phone ringtone. With some imagination and some effort, users can make their ringtones fit their specific needs.