Assigning A Ringtone That I Recorded To A Contact
rustytrombone
Enthusiast - Level 2

I just upgraded to a Motorola Bionic.

I know how to assign a ringtone to a Contact from the list or ringtones on the phone, so I don't need help with that.

My questions are:

  • If I have an audio file on my computer and I want to transfer it to my phone to assign it to a contact, how do I do that?
  • On the phone I want to record a message and assign it to a contact, how do i do that?

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks!

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Re: Assigning A Ringtone That I Recorded To A Contact
tikibar1
Community Leader
Community Leader

Using your USB cable, copy the file from your computer to your phone (I put them on my SD card).  You may want to set up a folder for 'ringtones' on your SD card or add a subfolder to your music folder.  Whatever works for you so that you'll remember where you put the file. Smiley Happy

Navigate to the file (it will probably start playing automatically; just press the stop button if you don't want to listen to it).  Press the menu button.  Press 'use as ringtone'.  Then assign to contact(s) as you usually do.

The above method also works for any music you have stored on your phone.

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Re: Assigning A Ringtone That I Recorded To A Contact
rustytrombone
Enthusiast - Level 2

Thanks for this answer, but I still have a few more questions:

  • When I hook the phone up to the computer by the USB, how does the SD card display on the computer? I use Windows XP. Would it be under My Computer-->E: Drive?
  • If I want to record directly on the phone and then place that as a unique ringtone for a contact, how would I do that? I don't see any recording function on the phone. Would I have to download an app? If so, would you recommend any? And after it is recorded on the phone, what steps would I need to assign it?

Thanks!

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Re: Assigning A Ringtone That I Recorded To A Contact
tikibar1
Community Leader
Community Leader

When you connect your Bionic to your computer using Windows, you should get a notification on the phone that you're connected.  Slide the notification bar down so that you can click on 'USB connection'.  Choose 'USB mass storage' and click ok.  You should then see at least two removable drives on your computer under My Computer (you may see three, depending on drivers installed):

MOT - phone files

removable disk - external SD card

If you want your ringtones on your external SD card, nagivate to 'removable disk', open it, and add whatever folders you want.  I use 'music' for my music files and 'ringtones' for my ringtones to keep things simple. Smiley Happy   Add whatever files you want to the appropriate folder.  Once you're done adding files, be sure to safely eject the hardware/media before unhooking your USB cable.

I haven't tried to record anything with the phone itself.  A Google search indicates that an app is probably required.  I would assume that once you have the audio file on your phone, that it's a matter of assigning it to contacts just like assigning regular ringtones, i.e., navigate to the file, open it, press menu, press 'use as ringtone', then assign to contact(s).

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Re: Assigning A Ringtone That I Recorded To A Contact
rustytrombone
Enthusiast - Level 2

I tried this, and it worked great! I was able to create a folder on the SD card of the Bionic and store audio files. The issue is assigning a ringtone from the SD card to a contact.

I'm going to list what I'm doing on the chance that I'm not following correct procedure:

1. Go to the Contact icon.

2. Select the Contact to assign a ring tone from the SD card.

3. Press Options.

4. Select Ringtone.

5. An entire list of the phone ringtones appear, but nowhere on that list does it give me an option to select from the SD card ringtones.

Do you have any suggestions on this?

The same thing occurs when I got to Settings-->Sounds Settings-->Incoming Calls-->Phone Ringtone-->Here the only ringtone offered are the ones on the Bionic.

Any help you could offer would be greatly appreciated. I'll even name a ringtone after you.

Thanks!

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Re: Assigning A Ringtone That I Recorded To A Contact
tikibar1
Community Leader
Community Leader

I don't know if this is true for other phones are not, but ringtones can be a pain in the rear at first with the Bionic until you realize that it's a two-step (or part, as the case may be) process.

As I noted in my first post, for every ringtone you want to add to your phone, you'll have to do these steps:

Navigate to the ringtone on your SD card that you want to use, i.e.,

     files

     SD card

     ringtones

     ringtone A, B, whatever its name is (it will probably start playing automatically; just press the stop button if you don't

        want to listen to it)

Press the menu button

Press 'use as ringtone'

That ringtone then gets added to your phone's list of ringtones.  You can then use it to assign to contacts or for the phone's ringtone.  You have to follow those steps for every ringtone you want added, unfortunately.  If there's a way around it, I haven't found it.

Another irritating thing is that whichever ringtone you add last based on these steps becomes your phone's ringtone, so if that's not what you want, you'll have to reset it (menu, settings, sound, phone ringtone, choose from selection).

Now, you can follow the steps you were using in your last post, i.e.,

Navigate to Contacts

Select specific contact

Press menu button

Press 'options'

Press 'ringtone'

Choose from selection; the ringtone(s) should now be in the list

Press ok

New ringtone name should be shown under 'ringtone'

Hope this helps.

View solution in original post

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Re: Assigning A Ringtone That I Recorded To A Contact
rustytrombone
Enthusiast - Level 2

I just tried this, and it worked.

Thanks for all of the help!

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Re: Assigning A Ringtone That I Recorded To A Contact
tikibar1
Community Leader
Community Leader

You're welcome.

And I don't know about you, but unlike a lot of other folks, I love my Bionic and haven't had any issues with it at all.

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Re: Assigning A Ringtone That I Recorded To A Contact
Ann154
Community Leader
Community Leader

The phone has to able to see the "ringtones" folder on the SD for you to be able to select from your custom ringtones.

The folder need to be called "ringtones" (without the quotes and exact capitalization) and sometimes it works to have in the root of the SD card.  The HTC phones and many others prefer a specific pathing for the phone to search the right location.  In the root of the SD card, create a folder called "media".  In that folder, create an "audio" folder.  In the "audio" folder, create "ringtones", "alarms" and "notifications" folders exactly as written.  Then you can copy your custom ringtones to the ringtones folder or the notifications folder if you want files there.  Disconnect the phone from the computer properly if you were using it to create the folders and let the phone remount the SD card and rescan it for new files.  The phone should now have the custom ringtones listed in the regular ringtone selection list.

I'm most definitely NOT a VZW employee. If a post answered your question, please mark it as the answer.

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Re: Assigning A Ringtone That I Recorded To A Contact
tikibar1
Community Leader
Community Leader

I thought there had to be a simpler method, but hadn't run across it yet.  Yep, this works on the Bionic as well.  Thanks.

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