I’m always amazed by the number of unconventional and creative ways people find to use Voxie, and I’m happy to finally contribute one of my own! I was a little behind the curve in getting my iPhone so I relied on the experience of seasoned users to get me up to speed in the beginning. After about a week into getting everything almost completely personalized, I still faced one hanging dilemma – what about ringtones? Now maybe not everyone has the enthusiasm as I do for personalization but I’d rather not have to whip out my phone every time I hear a generic ring in a public place. Also, I can be frugal at times and didn’t want to spend an extra dollar when I had already purchased the song. I don’t call that cheap, I call that smart.

I decided to do a little R&D work and look into the matter where I discovered it’s much simpler than expected. On top of that, it’s completely Mac supported, which means that Apple isn’t going to come down on you if you do an update. Thanks to the tips from The Apple Blog fascistic how-to guide, I can now create any ringtone I want. Not just using songs, but using audio I recorded from Voxie!

There are a few ways you can do it, but I’ll try to be as basic about it as possible. My process use a Mac with GarageBand, but there is a round-about way of doing it on a PC thanks to CyberNet’s easy guide.

Here’s How Make a Ringtone from a Voxie Recording:

1. Capture your audio on Voxie.
2. Use Voxie’s Wifi Sync to transfer to your computer
3.  Open both Garage Band and iTunes
4. Drag your audio file to Garage Band
5. Find the part in the audio that you want used (it can’t be more than 40 seconds – I’ve tried). I generally cut the audio so that I can use it like a book mark. To cut the audio, be sure you select it and then press Apple+T.
6. Once you’ve identified what part of the clip you want to use, click on the Apple Loop button, located at the bottom of Garage Band (it’s to the right of the fast forward button and left of the time display).
7. You’ll then see a small bar right above the audio. You can move it to any part of the audio file and drag it to make the time longer. Only the area the bar is under will be what’s in your ringtone.
8. Go to Share and select Send Ringtone to iTunes
9. It will automatically show up in your ringtones folder

*Note, if it says that your selection is longer than 40 seconds and you think you’ve done your math right, be sure that you’re using the time indicator rather than the measures indicator.

If only I had this as a kid! I remember when I first got a recorder, I went around recording all sorts of funny sounds. I guess it’s a good excuse to behave like a kid again. With the ability to set custom tones per person, you can use people’s own voice as their ringer! Grab a ringtone of your boss yelling, your specially some one whispering sweet nothings, or any random phrase that fits your caller!

[tags]iphone apps, audio recorder, ringtones[/tags]