Custom Ringtones?

[Morbius]

I am currently due for an upgrade, and I am looking at either the Droid Eris or the Palm Pre Plus.  Before I sink alot of money, one of the features I am concerned about is ringtones.  I have asked several of the sales reps at the Verizon stores, but I never get a straight answer.  The phones that we currently use, are locked by Verizon in order to prevent customization.  If I want a special ringtone, I have to purchase it from Verizon (and they usually don't have the ones I want).  With one of these new phones (Eris or Palm), will I be able make my own custom ringtones from an MP3 file located on my computer hard drive (without having to hack the phone), or will I still be stuck with the selection in the Verizon store? 

[seabright]

You can create your own ringtones for the Droid (and, presumably , the Eris, though I've no personal experience). You can load the mp3s on to you phone and use them. There are also some programs that will give you some more options. I really like Ringo Pro. Ringdroid is also useful. None of this requires hacking the phone.

[bkfist]

The Eris can also utilize any mp3 or other supported audio file (.ogg etc.) as a ringtone just like the Motorola Droid.)

[Morbius]

Awesome!

Thanks for the quick responses.

I'll head out and get mine this weekend.

[Dangerous_Dave]

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bkfist wrote:
The Eris can also utilize any mp3 or other supported audio file (.ogg etc.) as a ringtone just like the Motorola Droid.)

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And, the Eris has an on-board ringtone trimmer. So you can load any mp3 on the card, and then snip out whatever piece of the song you want to be your ringtone. Nice feature and nothing to download but the music you (probably) already have.

[LetsgoFishing]

hi dangerous dave....can u plzzz tell me where is the ringtone trimmer on the Eris? i some how came across it today after hitting a bunch of buttons now i cant find it. have no idea how i got to it.  can u help me find it? its a really, really cool feature.  thanks.

[LetsgoFishing]

well i finally found out where the 'ring trimmer is'.  for those who like to know, after accessing your music and display a song...hit menu, choose set as ringtone, then you get an option to set as phone, contact or trim the ringtone.  however trim does not come up w/ every song.  anyone know why?  havent figured that one out yet.  i did download an app (Sharetones) to see if i cud trim those songs but those songs dont come up in that app either.   ????

[seabright]

Is there a difference in the formats between the tracks that show us as trimmable and those that don't? I'm guessing that the trimmer may only work with mp3 and you have some tracks in other formats (.aac, perhaps).

Best of luck.

[TheGreatOne]

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seabright wrote:

You can create your own ringtones for the Droid (and, presumably , the Eris, though I've no personal experience). You can load the mp3s on to you phone and use them. There are also some programs that will give you some more options. I really like Ringo Pro. Ringdroid is also useful. None of this requires hacking the phone.

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Agreed. RingDroid is one of the best apps to make your own ringtones.I also like Mabilo Lite. That already has free ringtones uploaded that you can download yourself straight to the device. There are also 2 other apps called Ringtone by ringtone and Ringtone by Worara that are pretty good too.Free ringtones there.

[Katydid25]

I have had my Motorola Droid for a month now, and have been able to download "mp3" ringtones from a free app and it works fine.  I was considering the Droid Eris, but I did not like its set-up and flow between screens.  Even my teenage daughter was not that keen on it.   If you have further questions with Verizon, call them instead of going to the store.  They have been much more helpful over the phone, especially when you get one of them that already has the phone.   I am really enjoying this phone even though I still have much more to learn.  I actively check the running application screen after I have been online as things tend to stay running and it runs the battery down quickly.  That's my tip for the day...

[Morbius]

So, I ended up going with the Droid, and not the Eris.  Thanks to everyone for their input.

I soon found that making my own ringtones was a breeze.  One thing I did do before hand, was to pre-edit the MP3 for the portion which I wanted.  I use several music editing programs already, so it was simple to cut them down to a 30 second tune, and drop them into the phone.  I did try RingDroid, and it was a snap as well.  Everything sounds great!

I tried making some custom alert sounds as well.   These didn't go as well.  I was trying to use things from my sound effects library.  Apparently, there must be a certain bit rate/format requirement for these.  I know that the MP3s for the ringtones were recorded at 128kbps, while the sounds were WAV sounds at 176kbps.  I will attempt to convert them to MP3s and give them another try.