Make your own iPhone ringtones!

Due to popular demand, I'm posting my homegrown instructions on how to make a ringtone for your iPhone... without paying for software and without paying Apple $2. I've only done this on OS X and iTunes 9.1.1, but I suspect it would work on Windows as well. The one caveat is that you can't make a ringtone from a DRM'd song.

1. Acquire or locate the (not stolen!) song or sound you want to make a ringtone in. It cannot have DRM. Import it into iTunes if it is not already in there.
2. Right click on the song and choose "Get Info" (or choose Get Info from File Menu).
3. Click on the Options tab.
4. Check the Start Time and Stop Time checkboxes and fiddle with the start and stop time until you get the cut you want. It cannot be longer than 30 seconds. Sometimes it's useful to turn on repeat while you do this.
5. Highlight the song and the Under the Advanced menu, choose "Create AAC Version" -- you should see a new version of the song of the length you specified in your music library.
6. Right click on the new version and choose "Show in Finder" (or whatever the PC equivalent is). Drag that song to a safe place -- desktop, wherever, just not inside your iTunes library.
   
7. Delete the song from iTunes (from the library not just a playlist).
8. Rename the song on your desktop to .m4r - don't worry if your OS is concerned about this.
9. Drag it back into iTunes and it will put it in your ringtones.

Voilà! Sync your phone and try it out!

Feel free to give me any feedback on how this worked (or didn't) for you.