After serveral tries, I've finally got my iphone to recognize my custom ringtones using iTunes. Here are my steps to get it working. I didn't come up with this method but merely found it on the net but have failed numerous times by trial and error. I am posting my method which worked for me and enclosed some screenshots to do aways with some
confussions that you may have. Hoped this helps and works for you.
Software
You will need iTunes 7.4 or later
Optional: mp3 cutter software or any software that will edited your song
Prepration
Run iTunes and make sure the following are checked
Goto edit---> perference---> advanced---> general
Make sure "Keep iTunes Music folder organized" & "Copy files to iTunes musics folder." are checked
Under the same tab, goto 'importing' and make sure the following in red are true
Creating ringtone
If you don't have a third party software to create your ringtone, you can skip this step and go to the next.
Optional 1 Using Third party Software
If you have MP3 Cutter, you can edited your ringtone to the specific seconds. The average time the iphone will ring before going to voicemail is 20seconds. You can create a 20 seconds ringtone and save it as .m4a or mp3 file with 128kpbs.
Optional 2 Using iTunes
You can create your own ringtone by using itunes.
With itunes on desktop goto your library music selection and choose a song you like to create.
Rigt click and goto 'get info'--->'options' and choose your start and stop time. Click 'Ok' when done.
Right click on the song and select 'convert selection to AAC'
Important: Make sure you go back to the original file and redo the start and stop time to its orginal state by going to 'get info' again.
Saving Ringtone to iTunes
Now, right click on the created ringtone and select 'Show in windows explorer' Move the box to the side in desktop for now.
Remove ringtone in iTunes by right clicking---> delete--->remove--->keep file
Go back to the opened windows explorer box and rename the file from .m4a--->.m4r
Note:If you have extension hiddened, you will have to unhiddened it.
Goto 'Folder and search option' by right clicking on any folder. I am using Windows Vista, so Xp users will be slightly different.
Double click on the renamed file. This will create a ringtone folder under user/my music/itunes/itunes music
Goto the ringtone folder under user/music/itunes/itunes musics/ringtones
Located the file and rename the file from .m4r---> .m4a
Goto iTunes and click on the ringtone folder and double click on the ringtone. You will need to redirect windows to find the renamed ringtone. It should be located under user/music/itunes/itunes music/ringtones
Sync iphone
Click on your iphone device and goto ringtones tab and make sure it looks like so
Click on sync
Confirming ringtone on iphone
Home--->settings--->sounds--->file name
You should have the file there and not under Ipod songs
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