The process requires some manual work at the beginning as the program will only accept wav audio files for input. This means that the user either needs to have a wav file of the future ringtone or convert an audio file into wav format before the creation can commence.

The user needs to add the paths to the Nero AAC Encoder executable and the iTunes library to the portable program upon startup. The program will then check the locations and if they are valid open a file browser to select a wav audio file from the computer system. That wav file will then automatically be converted into the m4r ringtone format. It is then copied to the iTunes library and the ringtone folder of that library.

The process is fine for users who want to created iPhone ringtones every now and then. It could be made more user friendly by adding support for mp3 files and the creation of multiple ringtones at once. It is – as of now – only possible to select one wav file at a time. Not very handy for users who want to create several ringtones for their iPhone. The portable software iRingtones is available for download at the Codeplex website. It is compatible with most versions of the Microsoft Windows operating system and requires the Microsoft .net Framework.

The method is pretty straightforward but requires a bit of manual work. Start by right-clicking the song in iTunes that you want to create a ringtone from and select Get Info from the context menu. Click on the Options tab in the new window and pick a start and stop time for the ringer. It has to be exactly 30 seconds or less so consider this. Click Ok when you are done.

Now right-click the song and select Convert Selection to AAC from the menu. Now open your iTunes music library and drag and drop the newly created song to another location on the hard drive and delete the song in the iTunes library.

Now change the extension of the song from .m4a to .m4r and add it again to iTunes. You can either import it from within iTunes or double-click it if iTunes is the program of choice to open that file.

Create a new playlist in iTunes and move songs that you like into that playlist by drag and drop. Export that playlist as plain text and open it in a text editor. Each song has a url variable next to it which is the location of the song sample on the iTunes server. Use the url to download the song samples from iTunes.

I would suggest that you use a download manager for that task if you have a lot of urls. Once downloaded it would be a good idea to rename the songs so that you can identify them later on more easily. Copy the files to /Library/Ringtones on your iPhone and navigate to Settings -> Sound > Ringtone and select the song that you want as your ringtone on your iPhone.

This is a nice way to get a 30 seconds ringtone of your favorite song for free. I personally prefer to create ringtones from my CD and mp3 collection instead but I guess many users will be more than happy with the method described above.

source: tuaw