Many modern smartphones can turn any mp3 or music file supported by the phone into a ringtone. That’s unlike it was years ago where you had to create ringtones before you could use them as the phone’s ringtone.

Free Ringtone Maker is a free program for the Windows operating system that can turn any mp3 file on the computer into a ringtone.

There are still situations where you may want to customize a ringtone, for instance if you do not want the ringtone to start at the beginning of a song, but somewhere in the middle.

And that’s exactly the situation where Free Ringtone Maker comes into play. You can load any mp3 from the computer into the application.

Once you have loaded the mp3 into the program you can cut it. This is done by moving the beginning and end sliders to the locations that you want the ringtone to begin and end. You can click the play button anytime in the menu to listen to the current selection.

The ringtone is not limited to 30 seconds, you can increase or decrease the playtime if you like, and configure fade in and fade out options separately.

Once you are done you hit the Next button to open a save file browser to save the ringtone to the computer.

The best feature in my opinion is the simplicity of the operation. While it is possible to use a heavyweight music editor like Audacity for the same job, it usually takes a longer time getting adjusted to. Free Ringtone Maker only supports the creation of ringtones and that without a steep learning curve.

You can download Free Ringtone Maker from the developer website. The program is compatible with 32-bit and 64-bit editions of the Microsoft Windows operating system.

But some cell phones do not provide this opportunity yet. One way for owners of such cell phones is to use a free cell phone ringtone creator to create the ringtone. The website My MusicRings does require registration but does not send a verification email on the other hand and is therefor perfectly suited for creating a free ringtone in no time.. The service itself could not be more straightforward.

The user uploads an mp3 from his hard drive to the ringtone creation service in step 1. He will then have the option to select 29 seconds of the song for his ringtone by moving a slider on the waveform back and forth.

All that’s left is to pick a title and artist for the cell phone ringtone. The ringtone will be created and the option to download it to the computer or to send it to the cell phone is given on the final page of the process.

An url for cell phones is provided as well which can be used to access the page with the cell phone directly. Interestingly enough the pages can be shared with friends which also means that anyone can access all previously created cell phone ringtones by manipulating the url of the service.

Changing the ID from 4900 to another number will load the ring tone with the corresponding number.

Update: The site is no longer available. A good alternative with free ringtones is Cellsea.