The following instructions should help you to learn how to make your own cellphone ringers for free. I think this is pretty cool, since Sprint charges users for ringers that expire after a set time. The ringers you make yourself will never expire, and shouldn't cost you anything except possibly data charges on your phone. If you have a SprintPCS Vision or similar data plan already, the following should be totally free. If you don't have such a plan, you might be charged based on how many kilobytes you download onto your phone.
The first thing is to check you have these prerequisites:
Sprint or other cell phone allowing downloaded qcp ringers
mp3 file
Qualcomm Purevoice (free, download here)
WinAmp (free, download here)
Any .wav file editing program
1) Select your favorite mp3 file.
Basically choose any file you like, but realize the quality will be a bit lower, so some lyrics may not sound as clear.2) Use Winamp* to convert the .mp3 into a .wav file (it may be large ~50mb).
To do this:
Click Options | Preferences
Change the output to Disk Writer and Click Configure to choose the folder to save the new wav file to
Close the Preferences window, and hit Play on Winamp.
You won't hear anything, but this will make and save the new .wav file.
3) Use your favorite wav editing program to clip the wav down to under 30 seconds.
I use Creative Wave Studio that came with my sound card. There are many free programs available online if you don't have one. Try searching for one on download.com.Basically, just crop the file down to a segment of lyrics or melody that you like best.
If you make the clip too long, it will send calls to voicemail before the ringer finishes playing. Also realize the longer the ringer, the more memory it will take on your phone.
Save the edited file to a place you can find it.
4) Use Windows Sound Recorder* to convert the .wav file to 8.0 kHz, 16-bit mono format.
To get to this program: Start | Run | sndrec32.exe.
Open the edited .wav file and click File | Properties
Click Convert Now button
Change the format to PCM 8.0 kHz, 16-bit, mono.
Save the file.
5) Use Qualcomm Purevoice* to convert the .wav file to a .qcp file.
Open the .wav file
Press Shift-Alt-C on the keyboard to convert it to a .qcp file.
If you can't convert the file, it probably means it isn't saved in the right format (8.0 kHz, 16-bit mono).
The file size will decrease a lot with this conversion.
Save the .qcp file.
6) Upload the .qcp ringer for free here and send the file to your cell phone.
First follow this link to my free phone uploader.If you have a Sprint phone, it's super-easy:
Just type in your phone number, a short file description, browse to find the file, and hit "Upload File".
If you have a different carrier, you might have to type in the URL to download the ringer.
Alternatively, you could use a service like mbuzzy.
7) Use your phone to download the new ringer
Within a few minutes, you should get a new alert on your cellphone.Follow the URL in the alert, and download the file.
8) Try out the ringer, you're done!
Assign the ringer to incoming calls on your phone, as you normally would.* You can use any program you like, but these are the ones I chose.
Originally posted by Wayne at April 10, 2005 04:43 PM
Comments:
Does it work?
Posted by: john at August 20, 2005 11:00 PM
Yes! I've made many ringers this way and uploaded them to my phone.
Posted by: Wayne at August 21, 2005 12:38 AM
The step-by-step is awesome unfortunately mbuzzy.com does not support my cell phone (Fido, Siemens CF62). Any other clues?
Posted by: Yolanda at September 13, 2005 10:59 PM
Yolanda,
I searched around a bit and Free Ringers says it will work for your phone. Unfortunately, they charge a one-time $8.00 membership fee.
A couple services others might try are d-d-n.com and pcspix.com
Posted by: Wayne at September 14, 2005 10:21 AM