How To: Cropping MP3 & Saving To Phone in MPT

[Cincyball]

Im not sure if its the newest version of MPT (4.36) that causes this problem, but normally you can crop a section of an mp3, save that section as an mp3, and transfer it later in File Transfer Studio. As you will see, it won't let you do that. Here is a tutorial for cropping your mp3, transferring it to the phone, and then getting it back to your computer.

Step 1: Select your mp3 file to be cropped. Note: Song is almost 4 mins



Step 2: Crop the selection using the crop tool. Note: Selection cropped to about 30 secs



Step 3: Accept crop once satisfied. Note: You can fade in/out if you choose.



Step 4: As you can see, cant save to computer. Wont let you save as mp3.



Step 5: Transfer to Phone Instead. Note: Name the file anything you want.



Step 6: Sending mp3 to phone.



Step 7: Verify the file was sent in the correct mp3 format



Step 8: Go to File Transfer Studio. On the phone side, go to audio folder and find your ringtone.



Step 9: Save to computer. Note: On the left side, make note of where it is being saved to



Step 10: Verify the file was saved. You are done.



Thats it. It may seem tedious, but for some reason, the newer version of MPT wont let you save your cropped selection as an mp3. This is the work around I use. If anyone else has another idea, please share.

[Darren E]

Another way would be to take an MP3 file and use a wave editor-

Those of you who have Nero 7 will find a good wave editing program called Nero Wave Editor, others can find free wave editors out there on the Internet.
In my case, I use Wavelab (with several plugins) for editing.



1) Anytime you cut out a clip of audio, it's a good idea to NORMALIZE your audio. This ensures the volume of your audio is at it's maximum levels.

2) Add your fade in or fade outs AFTER you normalize your audio.

3) Save your file where you would keep your ringtones on your computer and using Cincy's great steps above, upload as a ringtone using MPT.

4) After saving your file, try messing around with any effects your editing program might have. Sometimes you may get good results making your ringtones unique!

5) Optional - convert your ringtone to a mono track to save some space. Ringtones are mostly heard through your phone's speaker so you really don't have to have it in stereo. Personal preference really- I save mine in stereo.

This isn't a BETTER way- just a different approach.

I have a sample of my work- it's a ringtone I use for text messages. The sound is a simple AT&T Text To Speech run through a vocoder, EQ, 4 voice pitch, and compressed heavily.

download here
(you may need to right click and save as)

Enjoy!

Darren E

[Cincyball]

Good info Darren. I had a PM asking about saving a crop as an MP3 in MPT, hence the MPT guide. Your way is quicker it appears. At any rate, there are myriads of ways to do this. If someone is efficient with Audacity, maybe they could throw a quick walkthrough together to give people different options. It wont be too long until we have a v3m/v3c specific sticky that will contain all the specific guides/walkthroughs.

[mblam7]

I too would like to thank Cincyball for the great tutorial. I'm a noobie and had little trouble getting MPT going after careful examination of the tread. I can't say I wasn't nervous while seem editing, but it all worked out for my wife's and my phone. Studio is working great. Verizon sure is sadistic!

Does anyone out there know a seem edit to "unlock" the phone so that it can be used by any network. I've got a year to go with Verizon, but I'd like to have a universal phone to play the field.

[MOTOhooligan]

Thank you both. The othe day I was trying to do this and got too frustrated and transferred the entire song to the handset. This way will be much better and save me some memory.

[Darren E]

Originally Posted by mblam7

I too would like to thank Cincyball for the great tutorial. I'm a noobie and had little trouble getting MPT going after careful examination of the tread. I can't say I wasn't nervous while seem editing, but it all worked out for my wife's and my phone. Studio is working great. Verizon sure is sadistic!

Does anyone out there know a seem edit to "unlock" the phone so that it can be used by any network. I've got a year to go with Verizon, but I'd like to have a universal phone to play the field.

That won't work even if you could unlock providers- Verizon/Alltel and Sprint work on CDMA technology (Code Division Multiple Access) which is proprietary cell phone technology by a San Diego company, Qualcomm.

Other phone companies use GSM (Global Systems for Mobile) because of it's worldwide standard.

The rest I believe are still using TDMA (Time Division Multiple Access) developed by Motorola.

Each one of these technologies are standards which require special hardware and software and are not cross platform capable. Not until they start making CDMA/TDMA/GSM multi-functional chips will you see something like this. And I'm not sure the top chip manufacturers are willing to integrate their proprietary technology!

[Darren E]

http://www.nch.com.au/wavepad/

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

http://www.mymusictools.com/download/wave-editor/

I have not tried any of these but if you want a free way to edit your mp3s.
Here is a good start!

[mblam7]

Dang...that's too bad! I was hoping for some freedom...

[makitso]

Ok, I am a bit confused. What exact format should a ringtone be in? I have learned that is is not .wav. If its a mp3, are there any specific things that I should know b4 I create the file? http://forums.wirelessadvisor.com/im.../new/loony.gif

[Cincyball]

Ringtones need to be mp3 format. The V3m will not play wma as ringtones...unless Sprint has done something differently

[jimresnikoff]

Originally Posted by Cincyball

Ringtones need to be mp3 format. The V3m will not play wma as ringtones...unless Sprint has done something differently

Not sure if this is the place to post this but I have a few questions about ringtones.

1. I have gotten MPT to do the crops and whatnot. No prob. I can transfer them to the phone. However if I move the cropped ringtones to any other folder or the memory card they are not available to use. Am I safe to assume that ringtones must be stored on the phone in the "root" directory?

2. Wallpapers when chosen to be moved to the card also indicate a letter "c" in the thumbnail. Again it seems they must be stored on the phone instead of the card to be used.

3. It seems like any mp3's I store on the memory card make it there but are not viewable when I access my music. I get a "player error" "Music is not available. Does the music player in the phone require the tracks to be in WMA format?

It seems to me that the only real function of the trans flash card is to sync up WMA's (all my stuff is in mp3 format and would have to be converted) and then make a play list.

Any help is appreciated. thanks.

[Cincyball]

1. Yea, ringtones must be stored on the phones memory. The reason: if u had all of your ringers on the card, and u decided to take the card out, and the phone rang...problems

2. Same reason as ringtones.

3. Yes, the media player looks to the my music folder and wma format. Ringtones look toward the audio folder and mp3 or midi format.

Yea, the tf card slot is for your music. U can use it to push ringtones and pics to temporarily. I have an ipod, so i wouldnt use my phone for music. I would keep my photos on my card in case I wanted to show people pics, but I flashed to Alltel cuz i really didnt need my tf card...

[jimresnikoff]

Thanks again.

I guess the card's main use would be basically to store wma's if you plan on using the phone as an Ipod. At least I can get the ringtones and the wallpapers changed easily. I would not say that the whole "data sync" process is quite as described by the advertisements. Seeming the phone and getting rid of the damn verizon advertisement was the best though .

[valadri]

that driver tool made my v3m undetectable

[Darren E]

What driver tool?? We can possibly help you if you elaborate a little more.

Give us an explanation of the steps you took before rendering your phone undetectable.

[valadri]

MPT DriverTool.exe installed with MPT version 4.21
installed cause had no multimedia apps on MPT and now phone is not connecting to MPT at all

sorry probly wrong place to post

[jimresnikoff]

This thread helped me out quite a bit, I needed to do a few seem edits to get the mpt. to light up the multimedia icon. after that things went better.

http://forums.wirelessadvisor.com/ra...onnected.html; (Getting your V3C/M Connected))

[smotrs]

For instructions on Audacity read on,

1. Obtain Audacity and Lame from the following locations.

• http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
• http://lame.sourceforge.net/index.php

2. Install Audacity to your computer.

3. Extract the lame_enc.dll file and place in the plugins folder for Audacity, e.g. c:\program files\audacity\plug-ins (yes it does have a hyphen in the name)

4. Launch Audacity and on the menu select Edit > Preferences.


5. Select the File Formats tab at the top followed by the Find Library button in the bottom right.
(Note the Bit Rate drop down box to the left, I'll refer to it in step 8 below.)


6. You should see a warning box stating that Audacity does not export MP3's but rather uses the Lame library to handle the encoding. Click the Yes button.

7. Browse to the location you stored the lame_enc.dll file (see step 3 above) and select Open.


(Note: in the future, you'll beable to go from step 5 to 8 as Audacity will remember where the library is located.)

8. Adjust your Bit Rate, this is the drop down I mentioned earlier, to the desired output, I have a KRZR with lotsa memory so I use 128 for ringtones.

9. Open an audio file with File > Open or by dragging the audio file into the Audacity window.
(Note: It's best to use a raw WAV file as re-encoding mp3 files will result in loss of quality regardless of bit rate settings. But for a ringtone, you may not notice it unless you do it few times.)


For this demo, I chose Oingo Boingo, When the Lights Go Out. The first 30 seconds are pretty good for a ringtone as you'll hear.

10. Once the file is opened, hit Play (big green arrow) and find the part of the song you want, you'll notice that this particular song is about 4 min long. When you locate the part of the song you want, the first 30 seconds in this case you'll want to select it.

To select a portion of the audio, just click and drag on the sine wave. A selection will show a slightly darker background in the sine wave window.

11. Zoom into your selection my using the magnifying glass or the 3rd icon which is Fit selection to window. This will allow for more precise editing and cleanup of the edges.


12. If you move your cursor over the selection start and ends, the cursor will change to a hand, this will allow you to adjust the start and ends of the selection so you can fine tune what you want to be your ringtone.


13. After locating the exact portion you want to keep, you can trim the excess off with the following button.


At this point, you have an approximately 30 second ringtone which you can now export to an mp3. You can also export it as a wav file and make additional changes like a fade out on the last few seconds.

If your done and don't wish to add any additional changes, skip to 18 below.

14. To export as a wav, on the menu goto File > Export As WAV and save the file where you wish to keep your ringtones. You can see Export as MP3 a little further down.


15. To do a fade out, select the last few seconds of your audio, you can fine tune this as you did in step 12 above.


16. On the menu, select Effect > Fade Out.


17. Notice the change to the last part of the sine wave?


At this point you can play the modified portion to hear how it will sound, make additional changes as you see fit or just export it as an mp3.

18. On the menu, goto File > Export As MP3. Assign a name and location to your ringtone and click Save.


19. You should see the export progression like the following, if not, then something went wrong and you'll need to connect to the Audacity forums to resolve.


That pretty much does it. My recommendation at this point is to play around with the various features of Audacity, get familiar with it and enjoy.

Here's a 64bit version of the file I just worked on, it's an mp3 ready to be saved to your phone. You can preview it ... here ... and you can download it ... here ...

[ticklemepink]

Ok, so I'm knew to this whole thing... I have cingular and I just got the new red razr and I want to put mp3s as my ringtone... do I need MPT in order to do that? I downloaded WavePad but I have no clue how to get the files from my computer to my phone... I think that's what MPT is for. I have a USB cable already. If MPT is what I need where do I get it? Please help!

[Spectre88]

Can you get MPT for free or do you have to buy it. Seems kind of lame that Motorola charges for something meant for their phones like this. Any help is welcomed!! Thanks!

[Cincyball]

Originally Posted by ticklemepink

Ok, so I'm knew to this whole thing... I have cingular and I just got the new red razr and I want to put mp3s as my ringtone... do I need MPT in order to do that? I downloaded WavePad but I have no clue how to get the files from my computer to my phone... I think that's what MPT is for. I have a USB cable already. If MPT is what I need where do I get it? Please help!

Originally Posted by Spectre88

Can you get MPT for free or do you have to buy it. Seems kind of lame that Motorola charges for something meant for their phones like this. Any help is welcomed!! Thanks!

Welcome both to WA. You can get MPT here -> http://www.bvrp.com/customers/motoro...g/selector.htm

When u get to checkout, you can use a discount code tech97 to save some more. Keep in mind, this is the DOWNLOAD version for if you already have the usb cable. You can buy the usb cable + cd combo on there as well, just go to their main site.

But this should answer your question that any free copy of MPT is an illegal one. It is copywright software.

[Spectre88]

Originally Posted by Cincyball