How to Make a Custom Ringtone for Windows Phone 8.1

July 22, 2014 Admin

To complete this procedure I used Audacity 2.0.5 open source software on a PC running Windows 8.1 Update. The phone I used was a Nokia Lumia 635.

Select the Required Section of the Track

Open your MP3 file in Audacity.
Play the track and note the start and finish time for the section of the track you want to use as a ringtone (typically about a 30 second chunk).
In Audacity, click in the waveform area at the noted start time.
Hold the shift key and then click at the noted end time – the required section of the track should now be highlighted.
Press the spacebar to play the highlighted area and then adjust the required section of the track as required.
Ensure the required section of track is highlighted once you have tweaked the start/finish time.

Trim the Start and Finish

From the Edit menu select Remove Audio or Labels and then Trim Audio – just the required section of the track should now be displayed.

Note: There is no need move the start of the remaining section of the track to zero as the white space before and after will be removed automatically.

Fade In

Click in the waveform area about 1 second before the end of the track.
From the Edit menu select Select and then Cursor to end of Track End.
From the Effect menu select Fade Out.

Fade Out

Click in the waveform area about 1 second into the track.
From the Edit menu select Select and then Track Start to Cursor.
From the Effect menu select Fade In.

Export/Save

From the File menu click Export and save the MP3 file as normal.

Find on Phone

Connect the phone to the PC (open File Explorer and the phone should be listed once connected).
Browse to the Ringtones folder and copy in the saved MP3 file.
On the Windows phone access Settings, Ringtones+Sounds, Ringtone and the imported MP3 file should appear in the list of ringtones under the Custom heading.

Note: It is possible to convert other audio file types to MP3 using Audacity as long as the LAME plugin is used. See the Audacity website for details: http://audacity.sourceforge.net.