Treo and Centro Ringtones: Quick, Simple & Free With MiniTones
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Last year I wrote a long post explaining how to “Make Your Own Free Treo Ringtones” in either WAV, MIDI or MP3 formats and how to change, add and manage these on your Treo [update] AND Centro smartphone.
At the time the best solution that I had found was using an application called WavePad on my PC to edit the MP3 music files and convert them to a Treo/Centro-friendly WAV ringtone.
I have however now found an even better, faster and much simpler solution to add MP3 ringtones directly to my Treo thanks to a freeware application called MiniTones.
MiniTones is a small (only 55K) application that enables you to select any MP3 file from your SD card [see Treo accessories or Centro accessories] and quickly add it to your “Ring Tones” list in your “Sounds & Alerts” Preferences (without MiniTones you can natively only add WAV or MIDI files to your Treo). When you launch MiniTones the application quickly scans your SD card for compatible MP3 files and then lists all of these (below left). You can play the file here and once you have selected the one that you want press the “Add Selected” button that will open an “Add Tone” window (below right).
However, you will typically not want to immediately add the entire MP3 file because 1) your ringtone only needs to be 20 to 30 seconds long instead of 4 minutes+ and 2) because you don’t want to add a 5MB+ file to your main memory.
Conveniently, MiniTones incorporates an extremely useful and powerful “Trim” tool (below left) that allows you to quickly select only the portion of a song that you wish to use as your ringtone. You simply select the Start and End of the trim by either sliding the timer bars on the screen or by pressing the “+ or -“ buttons and you can also easily see the trimmed file size on the left and duration on the right.
In this case I selected a 32sec segment (reducing the original file from 5.9MB/4mins 16s to only 764.7KB/32s). After pressing OK and then Add my newly created MP3 ringtone was almost instantly added to my Ring Tones list (below left) and ready to be used for any profile that I want.
Overall, MiniTones is an extraordinarily quick, simple and extremely convenient way to add MP3 ringtone capabilities to your PalmOS Treo smartphone and is an ideal solution for any Treonaut with basic ringtone needs. More demanding or advanced users will continue to be best served by the more extensive features of Ringo Pro or the latest version of mRing which has become increasingly more popular.
Treonauts always have the best tones ringing… 
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Comments
I tried to download Minitones; it is not compatitble with Treo 700w.
I just installed and ran minitones...at first the songs I wanted did not play...I burned a cd, reimported them back in as fresh mp3s and loaded onto my treo 700p and then it seemed to work fine...this worked w/ my itunes songs as well. Great program!! I'm excited for the new possibilities in varieties for my ringtones now. :-)
Help Please!!!
I have a palm treo 700p and i downloaded minitones... I trimmed all the mp3s i want and tried to set one as my known ringer... When someone from my contact list calls i get the default alarm ringer? Is there a reason it won't play the mp3 I trimmed from minitones??
I'm still trying to figure this phone out.. please help
really dumb when it comes to computers. can't seem to put real tones onto treo 750. everytime i download one it goes straight into my music folder but i can't move it to sounds folder to use as ring tone. is the 750 not compatible with real tones?
please help
i am trying to install mini tones on my palm 700p when i get it sent to my phone it comes to my messages as an email so do i have to have internet on my phone to install it? i have a 2gb sd card and have songs on it for my pocket tunes but dont know how to do anything else...
No need to install. Just put minitones.prc on you SD card in /PALM/Launcher folder and then eiteher run it from card or copy to main memory
Outstanding article. I was initially disappointed at the lack of mp3 ringtone support, but this made it easy. I have the theme from "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly" as a ringtone - have had it for years. It's not that I identify with the Bad-a** character played by Clint Eastwood, I just can't stand being in a room, hearing the default Cingular tone going off, and having to check my phone like half the room. MiniTones saved me from being part of the herd. Thanks again!
Thank you so much for showing me mini tones! It works great with my new 755p and is super easy to use!
This program rocks! I can't be happier. The site might need to updated to include a "download directly to your computer" link. This might help people who refuse to pay for the internet. Thanks again. Great program.
i don't have the card you're speaking, but i do have mini tones appl on my phone, can i just install my software that came w/the phone and hot sync
Does this app. work on the Treo 750? i heard something about Windows Mobile? didnt come with the treo. any one know where to get it?
I've downloaded minitones to my treo 755p and it worked the first time. Now that I have the program on my phone, I can't seem to get the songs to save to the minitones file. I don't know how to move the tones from p-tunes to minitones. Is this even possible. Also, when I download the songs to my phone when it goes to p-tunes I can't even listen to it. Is it because of the minitones file? If anyone understands and can help I would really appreciate it.
Thanks
worked like a charm, got it installed and created my new tone in 5 minutes
Help Please someone...I consider myself to be somewhat computer savvy however I can't get these mp3's to play on my phone. My SD card is in my phone and I hotsync to my computer and drag the selected files to my expansion card. I get on minitones on my palm...songs might be there songs might not. I have edited 3 songs now and added them to my sounds and set them as my ringer. No luck none of them play. I would love someone...anyone to email me step by step instructions on how to fix this problem..it's killin me. I would appreciate any help greatly!! My email address is dorsettjennifer@yahoo.com. Thanks : )
how can i tell whether it is a VBR or CBR and how can i convert VBR into CBR?
I have a similar problem too. I've used Minitones and Musictones and several online MP3 music editors like 3Guppies to trim MP3's to 30 seconds or less. I'm using Call Filter on my 700P which according to the developer is only designed up to the 680, but seems to work well for me with the exception of using MP3 as ringtones. It seems that even after I answer the phone the ringtone won't stop playing. Same thing for SMS messages. Call Filter has a lot of features that other Call Management/MP3 software doesn't have. Does anyone else out there have a similar issue with their 700P and an MP3 that is set as a ring tone/SMS message that won't stop playing?
Thank you so much for showing how to do this. It works great on my Palm Centro I was going crazy not knowing how to make ringtones. Your instructions are perfect and very detailed. THANKS!!!
THANK YOU TO THE PERSON THAT RECOMMENDED THIS APPLICATION. I WAS ABOUT RETURN MY PALM CENTRO TO SPRINT, BECAUSE THE RINGTONE THIS PHONE COMES WITH IS REALLY NOT THAT HOT. MINITONES WORKS PERRRRRRRRRFECT. MY PALM CENTRO IS NOW COMPLETE. I LOVE IT NOW MORE THAN EVER BECAUSE THE CAPABILITY OF CUSTOMIZED RINGTONG.
Okay - so can someone plz explain something to me. I downloaded minitones to my 680. I also stored it to computer (Why - i don't know). do u HAVE to have this expansion card thing for this mp3 thinger to work? AND - if u do have to have it - when u shave the file down to 30 seconds or whatever - does your original file remain unaffected and does it automatically save the "trimmed" file to the phone? -- i know i'm getting older now - these newer phones confuse the heck out of me ... HAHA
I found a work-around for adding ringtones to the Centro as I have not installed a SD card yet. Use Audacity and convert the mp3 to a .wav file. When you transfer the file, it will go straight into the ringtone directory. I had the same trouble with the mp3s I was sending from my 700p to my Centro. All the mp3s went straight into pTunes with no way to convert them to ringtones? The only drawback is that .wav files take up a lot more memory, so I would only suggest this as a temporary fix.
"Upgraded" to (Sprint) Centro from Treo650, so I skipped anything in between.
Is it just me, or is there no longer a way to select a ringtone on a Centro in the favorite buttons in the phone application?
I still see it on my Treo650, but where is it on the Centro? Gone? My quest to never ever never pay for a ringtone continues!
I use this program to convert any file to an .amr audio file: Nokia Multimedia Converter 2.0 (Windows) Free when you sign up. You still need a audio editor, such as a free one like Audacity; so perhaps the Minitones program bypasses all that. The .amr file is small, sounds good enough, gets stored on your Palm (not SD card), and is backed up.
OH FOR PETE'S SAKE I FOUND IT!
You change the ringtone in the individual contact! How about that! Now that's an upgrade, rather than relegating a ringtone ONLY to a favorite.
I use Agendus for calendar/contact/task/memo management, so I had to look around in the contact info the find the ringtone selection option! But it's there, too!
Nokia Multimedia Converter:
http://www.forum.nokia.com/info/sw.nokia.com/id/45bb041c-97c8-4dc9-a4c6-1c3313411189/nMMConverter_v2_0.zip.html
Requires registration, first. But I like the small files generated, and you don't have to worry about what External Card is in your phone!
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