I'll explain it. From the Keynote on Apple's web site, I recall the following:
iTunes 7.4 now has ringtone support. When installed, it automatically removes any ringtones that a user has "hacked" onto their device. So, it starts you fresh with no extra ringtones. At the moment, you can see the ringtone tab under the iPhone but not the Ringtones section on the left pane. Steve said they will "turn on" the ringtone feature in about a week (from Wednesday). They probably have some work to do still.
So when you want a ringtone, you look at your songs and after some action I can't remember, a ringtone icon column appears and a bell appears on songs that are eligible for ringtone creation. It sounds like they must be purchased from iTunes and even then, only 500K of their millions of songs are eligible. So anything unprotected is most likely offlimits. When you want to make a ringtone, you bring up the editor, select a section up to 30 seconds and then add fades or loop the ringtone. When you are satisfied, you click Buy Ringtone and at that point, you are billed $0.99. So you basically pay $0.99 * 2...song + ringtone.
Now this is very controversial and confusing. For one thing, it is actually a good deal compared to many other phones! Many others are $2.49! However, I have never purchased a ringtone and probably won't ever. So, I am very pleased that it is so easy to create ringtones for free!
I spent about an hour or so going through my favorites playlist in MC. Then, I simply drag a song from MC to Audacity (two monitors--across the gap). Audacity imports it. I then play the song and find the section I like. Then, I cut it down to around 25 seconds (too long means you don't hear the fade out because it just stops). Next, I add fades, EQ it to remove most of the bass, compress and boost the audio overall. The goal is to get the bass out so it sounds okay on the iPhone speaker. With very little bass it actually sounds half decent!
So once you have the file, export as WAV. I'm using FLAC so no loss in original quality except for my edits here. Then, import into iTunes. Then, convert to AAC 128 Kbps. Then, I delete the WAV and AAC from itunes keeping files. Then I move the files to a folder to keep for later use by me. Then (lol...then then then) find the AAC file and rename FROM .m4a TO .m4r (ringtone). Then, simply drag into iTunes. It will be added but won't show up anywhere in your library.
However, go to the ringtones tab and viola! There the ringtones are! Then just sync them over and you're ready to go! I purchased the music on CD and ripped it (and still own CDs!!) so I already bought everything. I've read some other people saying that this is legal.
At the moment you can't find the ringtone files in iTunes so you can't delete them from the database. Be careful to not clutter the cluttered iTunes database up TOO much. When they turn on ringtones the option should appear and you should be able to delete them.
I almost think this was intentional because it's SO simple! Nothing to it! People, on other forums, were saying it can't be that simple! But it is!
