GarageBand puts its ringtone-creation feature front and center on the welcome screen, but using its complex interface can seem like overkill when all you want to do is trim a song to ringtone length and export it to iTunes. iToner does the same thing, with a simple, almost spartan interface. It even bundles a few premade ringtones, but they may be there solely to convince you that you can do a better job yourself.
When you first launch it, you’re instructed to drag a file from the Finder onto it, but you can also click Get Ringtone and access your iTunes library that way. The handy search field speeds up the selection process, and you can even import multiple tracks at once. Your chosen tracks appear in their entirety in iToner’s Library. Double-click on any of them to switch to the editing section.
This is where matters could be slightly easier. By default, the first 30 seconds of your song are selected, and it’s extremely easy to resize that selection and add a fade in and a fade out. You can only listen to what's in that selected area, though, so while you can move the selection around or even create a new one, unless you’re comfortable reading audio waveforms, it’ll be a little hit and miss until you locate the exact section of the song you want.
Once you have, however, little features make it very easy to edit your ringtone. As you drag the line that denotes the start of your ringtone, iToner plays back the few seconds your selection to help you place your edit point exactly where you want it. The end cut is a different matter: the audio preview doesn’t stop at the cut but actually carries on a little after it, making getting a precise end a tad tricky. The audio preview can even end up being more of a nuisance when you’ve tried repeatedly a few times. Thankfully, you can disable Audio Scrubbing in the Preferences.
The loop function helps you determine how the track will sound as it loops back, and the Cleartone feature (on by default) normalizes your track so it sounds clearer when listened to from your iPhone. Exporting the ringtone to iTunes is perfectly seamless.
The bottom line. The audio preview features could be refined a little, but iToner's interface is simple enough to make creating ringtones a snap.
of 5
iToner 3.0.1
OS X 10.7.4 or later
Easy to find songs stored in your iTunes library. Can trim and add a fade with ease. Importing to iTunes is a trouble-free one-click affair.
Finding the right part of a track is cumbersome at best. No keyboard shortcuts to set the start and end of a selection. The audio preview for the ‘end’ selection is more of a hindrance than a help.
