This tutorial details how to create free ringtones for your iPhone using only iTunes and songs you already have on your computer (only works with songs that are DRM free). The method has been tested and works with iTunes 8.0.1.11 and iPhone 2.0.1 firmware.
Note: If you are fond of some short audio clip of a DVD movie, TV show or video file and want to customize it as your iPhone ringtone, you need to extract the audio from the DVD or video and then import the audio to your iTunes Library. Clone2Go DVD to iPhone Converter offers the solution to extracting audio clips from DVD movies and TV shows, video files and YouTube videos to iTunes.
To create free iPhone ringtones using iTunes 8:
1. Right click on the song you are going to make into a ringtone and select "Get Info."
2. Go to the Options tab and go down to the Start Time and Stop Time check boxes. Check both boxes and input the time you want your ringtone to start/stop. The ringtone has to be 30 seconds or less. Click OK when you're done.
3. Right click on your newly "clipped" song and select Create AAC Version. Or directly click the Advanced tab on the main menu of iTunes 8 and select Create AAC Version from the drop-down list. The song will be re-encoded using the start and stop times specified.
Note: If your menu item does not read Create AAC Version and reads Create MP3 Version (or some other format) please go to iTunes -> Edit -> Preferences -> General and refer to the graphs below:
4. After the song is done encoding, navigate to your iTunes Music folder, locate your song, and drag it to your desktop. After the song is on your desktop go back to iTunes and delete the clipped version from you iTunes library (It won't delete it from your desktop, it will only remove it from iTunes).
5. Go back the song on your desktop and right click on your song and choose "Properties". Go to the name and extension section and change the extension from .m4a to .m4r (or you can just change the extension right from your desktop).
6. After the extension is changed simply double click on the file to add it to your iTunes library under the ringtones section. Sync your phone with iTunes and you're done!