Google
 
Web vx8300.blogspot.com
Feature: VX8300 Accessory Guide

Saturday, August 19, 2006

Make MP3 and MIDI Ringtones

And now what you've all been waiting for: how to turn your favorite song into a ringtone and upload it to your phone, all for free. For this guide, you'll need to use BitPim. Here's my tutorial on how to set up BitPim, if you haven't already done so.

This tutorial is especially useful for VX8300 owners, but it should work for many other models that are BitPim compatible as well. I say that it is especially useful for VX8300 owners because LG (or more likely Verizon) made it somewhat difficult for a user to add ringtones to their phone by themselves. It can only be done with a specialized tool, like BitPim. I repeat, you cannot added ringtones to your VX8300 merely by adding them to some directory on your microSD card, they must be inserted directly into your phone's memory with BitPim. That said, let's begin...

We'll start with adding MIDI ringtones. MIDIs are like digital sheet music that tell your computer or phone how to play a song. MIDIs of many popular songs from old to new can be found for free on the internet.
  1. Open BitPim and connect it to your phone.
  2. Click on the plus sign next to "Media" on the BitPim tree, and then click "ringers" beneath it.
  3. Drag your MIDI files into the large white pane on the right.
  4. Now click the Green Arrow Pointing to the Cell Phone button, select ringtones, hit OK, and wait for the transfer. That's all there is to it, check your "My Ringtones" menu on your VX8300 to see if it worked.

Creating an MP3 ringtone for your phone is a little more involved, as you'll typically need to edit the file down to the short clip that you want as a ringtone. Fortunately, BitPim makes this very easy by providing a simple MP3 editor. (For more advanced audio editing capabilities, I highly recommend Audacity, which is free software.)
  1. Drag your MP3 into the ringers pane, as you would for a MIDI. A simple editor/converter appears.
  2. Press convert to convert your audio into the appropriate format for editing. As you practice making more MP3 ringtones, you'll want to start fiddling with the available options before you convert to improve the quality of your ringtones. A higher bitrate raises audio quality at the expense of greater file size, for instance.
  3. When conversion is complete, you'll wnat to cut the song down to the chunk you want to hear as a ringtone. The blue-grey bar represents the whole length of the song. Drag the pink and red sliders to the beginning and end of the area you want to use. Click play clip as you go to hear the selected area.
  4. After this, you may want to boost the volume of the clip. The VX8300 has a tendency to play homemade ringtones at volume slightly quieter than the supplied ones. Do this by adding a positive value to the decibel (dB) volume adjustment box. Experiment with the amount on different attempts, but remember that the more you increase the volume, the more distortion will be introduced to the clip. I've found 5db to be a rather happy compromise between loudness and distortion.
  5. Press OK when you're done, let it do its thing, and upload it to your phone, same way as the MIDI.

Kudos, you can now go out into the world and annoy people with your taste in music everytime you receive a phone call. Remember, if you're having trouble with connecting to your phone, see my guide on how to configure BitPim.

Want to make your phone even easier to use? Read my tutorial on VX8300 shortcuts.

45 Comments:

Blogger Andy Moskowitz said...

Yes, and thanks for mentioning this. You'll probably be charged to receive this message, though, and the charges can add up if you're sending many ringtones, or testing different encodings.

7:21 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

after you put the mp3 ringtone on your phone using bitpim can you move it onto your mircosd card or do all the ringtones have to be on the phones memory??
And if you put .wav songs on the card you will be able to play them in the music library right?

8:57 AM  
Blogger Andy Moskowitz said...

Ringtones must be in the internal memory. I'm not sure if .wavs work, but you're much better off encoding them as .mp3s, as they'll take up much less space. Use LAME.

11:34 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

What exactly is the legallity behind putting on your own ringtones? Would you get introuble for putting ringtones on other peoples phones?

5:35 PM  
Blogger Andy Moskowitz said...

No, you won't get in trouble.

8:22 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

How do you delete ringtones off your phone if sent them from your computer via usb

7:53 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

What address do you email the mp3 to?

1:53 PM  
Blogger Andy Moskowitz said...

From an email I just wrote: "I haven't actually tried sending mp3s myself, but I hear it can be
done. To send emails to your phone, go to vzwpix.com and register
your phone number for free. Then you can email it to
your10digitnumber@vzwpix.com."

11:18 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hey, first off, I love this site, its helped me out a ton. But I wanted to say I was looking for mp3 to ringtone sites and I found this place called mobile17.com it just uploads a song from your computer and you pick where you want it to start and how long you want it to last, then it sends it to the phone as a pix message and you can save it from there as a ringtone. So if you have a text package its essentially free, it takes from 45 min to 2 hours depending on how many people are on the site or you can pay to have it delivered immediately, but I thought it was a prety cool alternative to VZW tones

8:18 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hi. I am a big fan of this blog, and thanks to whoever created it. I hav a 1gb microSD card and a card reader. Can I upload my ringtones from my card onto the phone, and they will be right there for me to use? I don't want to use a PIX message and waste .25 each time i download a ringtone. Thanks so much!

5:56 PM  
Blogger Andy Moskowitz said...

You're welcome, glad you like the blog. If you want to put ringtones on your phone without the 25 cent messaging charge, you'll need to buy either the cable or a bluetooth adapter and use the methods described in this and other articles on my site. You can't put ringtones on your phone with just a memory card, unfortunately.

11:11 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hey, great blog.

I just got my 8300 a few days ago. It has several midi files in the Phone Memory/My Sounds. Is there a way to get those to be choices for ringtones?

11:33 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Thanks for the blog...
I noticed some of the mp3's I tried to use as ringtones just played silence on the phone. I eventually tracked it down to the "sample rate". None of those with a sample rate of 11k or less worked. Resampling them to 14k worked.

Not quite on the subject of ringtones, I also wanted to put some mp3's in the "my_sounds" folder of the microSD card so they could be attached to text messages. But mp3's aren't recognized in that folder. Simply renaming the mp3's to mid's (even though they remain in mp3 format) solves this -- the phone then sees the files and plays them correctly.

1:34 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hey,

This has been really useful, and I've had good luck sending ringtones to my phone. I just sent one, however, and the quality isn't so amazing. I'd like to remove it, but when I go to Memory under Setting and Tools, I don't really see a way to it - namely, it doesn't recognize the ringtone as being in any of the phone (not the card's) memory folders.

How do I delete them?

9:44 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

So...who knows a good free midi file site?

1:03 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hey my name is Adri and I just recieved my 8300. I have attempted all day to do the conversion but for some reson can't get through bitpim. I keep getting an exception error. I have attempted finding out what to do to fix it but nobody (including bitpim) can assist me. HELP PLEASE!

11:23 AM  
Blogger Andy Moskowitz said...

Hi Adri. Exception error? Like it just crashes and closes? Try reinstalling the program, or perhaps trying it on a different comptuer.

11:48 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

1 word..... AWESOME! I guess it was the comp. I tried it on my home pc and it worked like a charm! Thanks so much!

2:45 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hi Andy,
I've followed your instructions for using BitPim with the VX-8300. Although BitPim can see my phone via the COM port it cannot communication with it. It seems my phone is not responding to BitPim requests. Here's a BitPim log entry:

14:40:17.907 COM5: Opening port COM5, 115200 baud, timeout 3.000000, hardwareflow 0, softwareflow 0
14:40:17.907 COM5: Open of comm port suceeded
14:40:17.907 LG-VX8300: Attempting to contact phone
14:40:17.917 LG-VX8300: Getting Phone Info
14:40:17.917 LG-VX8300: Getting file contents 'brew/version.txt'
14:40:21.913 COM5: Changed port speed to 38400
14:40:26.420 COM5: Changed port speed to 115200
14:40:34.931 LG-VX8300: No response to AT+GMM

Any ideas on how to get this to work? I've tried everything the BitPim help feature offers but nothing works.

Thanks!
Tim

11:51 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

This site has been very helpful, and I thank you... I have a question regarding mp3 ringtones. I actually use a very short clip (around 10 seconds) as my ringtone. On my old phone, once the tone finished playing, it would repeat itself. However, this phone doesn't seem to do that--or at least not with MP3s (it does with standard tones). Do you know of a way to make MP3 tones repeat, or must I make an MP3 that loops the clip?

1:02 PM  
Blogger Andy Moskowitz said...

Tim: I don't know what's going on, but maybe you should try the BitPim users mailing list. Go to the BitPim help at http://bitpim.sourceforge.net/help/ click About, then Support and read that page for guidelines on contacting the list.

Popo: I don't know, but looping the mp3 sounds like a fine solution

1:10 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

First of all i'd like to say thanks a lot! This website has helped me out a great deal.

Here are my question though.

I bought a micro SD card w/ a computer adapter, so i just plug in my micro sd card into the reader and into my computer and just transfer mp3 files to it. I was wondering is there any possible way of making those songs i transfer on the card ringtones? As of right now they are just mp3 files and i can't select them to a certain user as a ringtone.

Is it possible to do this without buying the data cable and bitmip program?

Thanks

5:16 PM  
Blogger Andy Moskowitz said...

Hey Anon, glad you like the site. Bitpim is free, but unfortunately, yeah, you have to either have some form of Bluetooth support or the data cable in order to transfer ringtones... actually, now that I think about it, I think you can email short music clips to your phone (at the cost of a picture message) and use them as ringtones. Try your @vzwpix.com address. Sign up at vzwpix.com.

7:42 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hello. I was wondering if there was another link for Bitpim. The one that is linked here doesn't seem to work. I've been searching via google and other means but it all leads to the same website that doesn't work. Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance

9:49 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hello. I was wondering if there was another link for Bitpim. The one that is linked here doesn't seem to work. I've been searching via google and other means but it all leads to the same website that doesn't work. Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance

9:57 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Andy, Thank you for this site it's been an huge help and a great resource. I've found answers for all of my questions except one. How can I remove a mp3 ringtone that I have downloaded to my phone with bitpim? If I remove it from bitpim and send phone info with the "ringtone - replace all" option will it erase the default ringers since they're not on the bitpim list???

6:59 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hi again Andy,
I took a chance with the previous post and was correct. If you want to erase downloaded mp3 ringtones just delete them in Bitpim and push the send phone data button. Then select ringers and replace all. All the default ringers remain.

7:37 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

When I got this phone I was ticked at first because it didn't allow mp3 ringtones but then I found this blog.

Thank you so much! I followed your directions and it literally took 5 minutes to edit and download the clip to the phone. Keep up the great work!!!

9:08 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hi I just got my phone about a week ago and then I found this site. I just wanted to tell the site creator thanks alot. My problem is i'm trying to create ring tones but all of my music files are saved as wma's is there anyway around this or some type of conversion that I can do with bitpim or another freeware
thanks

11:26 AM  
Blogger Andy Moskowitz said...

I'm glad you like the site. This program will convert both wma to mp3 and mp3 to wma: http://www.download.com/Free-Mp3-Wma-Converter/3004-2140_4-10505512.html?tag=tab_scr

3:15 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Has anyone tried following the instructions on the BitPim site under the "how to" for the 8300 to have the ringtones on your microSD?

Instructions:
Transferring files to the microSD card through the phone using BitPim is very slow, users should transfer files to the card directly from a PC.

On the microSD card, create a subdir called ringers
Copy your ringtone files to the ringers subdir.
Insert the card back into the phone and start BitPim.
Retrieve Ringtone data from the phone:
Menu Data -> Get Phone Data.
Check on Ringtone, and click on OK.
Write Ringtone data back to the phone:
Menu Data -> Send Phone Data.
Check on Ringtone and Replace All, and click on OK.
All of the ringtones stored on both the phone and the card are now available for assignment.
Step 3 through 5 should be repeated for all changes made to the ringers subdir.

9:10 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I just got my vx8300 and I can't read it, the text is so small! Anyway to change it?? I've already tried changing the font, it only changes the numbers you type in to call.

8:23 AM  
Blogger MustBHerd said...

I cannot upload my mp3s to my lg vx8300 phone using BitPrim. The following message occurs, "An unexpected error occured." I also tried going thru the phone's file system, but BitPrim tells me that the manufacturer has blocked access. Is there a work around for this issue?

8:41 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I have the same error....

7:53 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

MustBHerd, anon, et al:

I had the same problem loading MP3s onto my VX8300.

The BitPim Help files led me to the SourceForge forums where people made the suggestion to "Shift + Add" -- more precisely, choose "ringers" on the left panel, hold Shift and press the "Add Ringer" button on the BitPim menu, then locate the MP3 and either double-click or press Open.

My assumption is that holding shift and pressing Add Ringer forces BitPim to skip the built in Audio Editor, so you must be sure to crop your files before doing this -- as well as many others, I suggest Audacity.

Hope this helps.

11:23 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I was so excited to find all the info here, and I downloaded the bitpim software, and have been following all the instructions step by step but keep coming up with these darn errors before I can really do anything.

An unexpected exception has occurred.
Please see the help for details on what to do.

I don't understand what it's trying to tell me. I've looked thorugh help and I've got nothing. I got to the point where I try to add my mp3 music file over into bitpim and then that error comes up. Did I miss something or do something wrong? Any ideas?

2:06 PM  
Blogger Joe said...

This is the error i keep getting when moving mp3 to bitpim. Anyone have any ideas?

http://www.geocities.com/lexeo602//bitpim-ringtone_error.htm

9:05 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Thanks for all your good information. I converted an MP3 song for a ringtone on BitPim, following your directions and sent it to transfer to my phone. On the bitpim screen it appeared to work but the tone apparently never got to MY Ringtones. Any ideas (VX8300)

Thanks

Fred

10:41 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I wanted to tell you what a great board you have made here! We are novice "advanced" cell phone users (I had a track phone and then a very basic color phone with no PC compatibility at all!). Now we're loving these 8300's.

I won't ask a bunch of questions here - just slowly getting through your site when I have time. I next want to look at my husband's bluetooth headset to see if it's possible to connect to the computer through it - my guess is "NO" but I'll look anyway. It does look like I'll have to buy the USB cord but hate to spend the money! I did buy the card to save pictures and videos onto and that is working nicely. Haven't had any luck yet with transferring MP3's - they looked like they did but when I went to play all the transferred MP3s the phone didn't recognize them.

Actually I DO have one question if you can answer it - is there a way to block copy pictures right on the phone (like a "Control C" "Control V" kind of thing) so that more than one is selected to go onto the card? I get tired of doing one at a time!!

Thanks -- dori

9:30 AM  
Blogger Andy Moskowitz said...

With a card reader you can drag as many pictures at a time as you want into the my_pix folder.

12:48 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

thanx for the blog this has helped so much but where can i get free midi files to down load so i can make a ringtone

5:23 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hi, terrific blog!
I have a problem though. I am planning to get a Micro SD card for my phone, but is there still a way for me to listen to a few mp3's in the mean time? Because i've attempted to put mp3's on my phone with my usb chord and it shows on bitpim that they are on the phone but when I look for them on the phone itself, they're nowhere to be found. Same with Mp3 ringtones.

1:01 AM  
Blogger ergreen said...

hey! i love the blog as well. However, I am having trouble transferring songs from my computer to my VX8300. I have been using Itunes on my computer. Does the cell not read the format from itunes? How do I make it so that the cell phone is able to read the songs that I transfer over from my computer? Thanks!

4:26 PM  
Blogger Andy Moskowitz said...

The files must be in MP3 or WMA format to work on the phone. If you ripped your cds in itunes using the default settings, they're probably in AAC format, which won't work.

5:18 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Send yourself a ringtone for the cost of a text message (usually 10 cents) by going to...

http://mobile17.com

-OR-

http://wwww.smashthetones.com

** Excellent blog **

11:05 PM  


I've enjoyed responding to your hundreds of comments, but I've finally decided to disable comment posting now that I've created a better alternative. Please use the VX8300 forums for any further questions, where they'll me answered by me, or any number of other helpful VX8300 users.

<< Home