Create Custom Ringtones for Verizon Phones

Almost all of my family and friends have cellphone plans with Verizon Wireless. Thanks to their In calling plan, I can talk to all of these folks for free. Which is great. What is not great is the lack of customization possible with their phones.

I recently got a new phone, the Motorola RIZR Z6tv. A co-worker of mine has the same phone model through T-Mobile and was able to easily connect his phone to his PC and move over MP3 files to be used as ringtones. However, when I tried to do this with my Verizon phone, I found it was impossible to set the MP3 files as ringtones. I eventually found a process which allowed me to add custom ringtones to my phone; the best part about this process is that you can use all free software to create your custom ringtones and add them to your phone.

Step 1. Create your song
The first step is to actually create your song. This can be a personal recording or an edited version of your favorite song.

To edit your ringtone, you can use the free cross-platform audio editor, Audacity. Mac users can even use Garage Band which comes already installed with Mac computers.

Just make sure your ring tone is between 20-30 seconds max. This length works best for ringtones and will make sure your file size is small enough to store on your phone’s internal memory.

Once your audio file has been edited, render the file as an MP3 at 128kbps.

Step 2. Send your song
Open up your email program of choice and send the song via email to your phone at the Verizon Pix address, which will be your_number@vzwpix.com:

For example: 1234567890@vzwpix.com

Sometimes the pix messages will get lost or held-up on the Verizon server. If you don’t receive the tune after a few moments, simply re-send it to yourself.

Step 3. Save your song as ringtone
Once you receive the tune, open the message and click to save in your My Sounds menu on your phone. Navigate to the song in the My Sounds menu and click Set Ringtone.

This step may vary slightly depending on your phone model. Typically, you’ll want to attempt to save the tone as a Sound and then set as ringtone from there. The tone should now appear in the Ringtones menu along with the built-in ringtones.