Before you start, you need the following:
- 1. the phone! - this tutorial is for the LG Chocolate (VX8500 model), it may work with other models of the Chocolate but I have no idea.. you can check your phone’s model # by removing the battery and reading the manufacturer sticker.
- 2. USB data cable - to connect your phone to your computer. you can buy the Music Essentials Kit from Verizon for 30 bucks, or you can do what I did and get the cable for 3 bucks on eBay :P (it came with all necessary drivers)
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3. USB drivers. - these needed drivers come with the music essentials kit, and most sellers on eBay include them with the cable.. but if you didn’t get a cd with your cable you NEED to download and install these drivers in order for your phone to communicate with your computer.
Free Chocolate USB Drivers HERE
(drivers for “MEK Music Essentials Kit”) - 4. BitPim - this is the program we’ll be using to transfer the ringtones to the phone.
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5. AudaCity - this is the audio editing software we’ll be using to create the ringtones.
Download Audacity HERE
Download the Lame encoder
(to export your ringers as mp3 files)
that’s it! now time to make the ringers..
1. open Audacity and open/import an mp3.
2. now edit, crop, fade out, ect your mp3. final audio should be no longer than 30 seconds!
3. assuming you’ve installed the lame encoder, edit the output settings by pressing Ctrl+P.
3a. on the File Formats tab
3b. go down to MP3 Export Setup, now change the bitrate to 64. (see below)
4. now export the ringtone by clicking File in the toolbar and click Export As MP3…
BAM! you’ve just made your first custom ringtone. congrats. now it’s time to put that motherfunk on your phone.
5. Install the USB drivers BEFORE connecting the phone to the computer.
6. Connect your phone to the computer via the USB cable.
7. Assuming you’ve already installed BitPim, open the program.
8. It should be set to automatically detect your phone, but if not, go to Edit in the toolbar and on the dropdown menu click Detect Phone.
9. Now open the ringers on the menu tree (see below)
10. Once inside the ringer folder, drag and drop your mp3 ringer that you exported in step 4 into the ringer folder.
11. You’ll get a popup to convert the file, use the settings shown below, then click Convert.
12. After you’ve converted the mp3, click ok. now you’ll see this screen below with your ringer in it.. we’re almost done!
13. All that’s left is to send the ringer to your phone by clicking the button (shown below)
14. check the Ringtone box & click Add. then OK.
Your phone will dial a code when you transfer your ringtone, it DOES NOT charge you!
15. enjoy your new custom made FREE ringtone! if it doesn’t show up in your ringers on the phone, you may have to powercycle the phone (remove battery & put it back in).
to import/export wallpapers & images, it’s pretty much the same steps as above only with “images” folder. same thing for full songs, just use the “music” folder.. videos (youtube, myspace, ect..) on the other hand are a bit more tricky.. i’ll write up that tutorial soon :)
For those who have “access blocked by provider” issues with bitpim, please read below.
- Newer phones have a different version of firmware (V05 & V06).
- To find out what version firmware your running on your phone, go to
Menu >> Settings & Tools >> Phone Info >> SW Version >> now right at the top of the list you should see “SW Version”, now right below that you’ll see what version your running.. T85VZ… you’ll either have an 04, 05, or 06 at the end, that’s the version number!
Solution 1: Uninstall Bitpim, then download & install the latest bitpim-test (beta). Then refer to Krans’s comment for further instructions
Solution 2: This involves flashing lower versions of firmware onto your phone (which can brick it!) so I’m kinda hesitant to post it, however, I will type it up if people are still having problems with solution 1.
Thank you very much.
ive had my LG Chocolate (VX8500) for almost 2 years now and could never figure it out until i read this. it worked perfectly.
I GOT A QUESTION WHAT IF YOU MADE A RINGTONE AND PUT IT ON TO THE PHONE BUT U DON’T LIKE IT ANYMORE OR IT’S NOT WORKING RIGHT ON YOUR PNONE. HOW DO YOU TAKE THE FILE/RINGTONE OUT?
sweet dude….thanks alot, it took me a minute but i was just gettin old versions of bitpim and they wouldnt work for my cell…i got the latest and works great….perfect/easy instructions, very informational…wonderful job, thanks alot!!!!
you are a some kinda god. the god of free ringtones. thanks alot!!!!!!!!!!!!
You are a rockstar…thank you!
can you pull this off using blue-tooth? i don’t wanna buy the USB stuff.
ditto Mike’s message. can I do this using bluetooth?
Here’s how to remove a tone if you are a new customer or already a Verizon Wireless customer.
Step 1:
Press the left soft key for Menu.
Step 2:
Select Get It Now.
Step 3:
Select Get Apps.
Step 4:
Select Settings.
Step 5:
Select Manage Apps.
Step 6:
Select the application that you wish to disable or remove by pressing the OK button.
Step 7:
Choose Cancel Subscription or Remove.
[copied from verizon.com :) ]
Hope this helps out.
OMG This is soo awesome!! Thanks a bunch!
I cannot get it to work for my new Chocolate 3. I get to the last step and when I hit the transfer to phone, it pauses and says
“Failed to auto-detect the port to use. I couldn’t detect any candidate ports” and then my mac says that I removed my device.
Then something popped up in bitpim:
BitPim version: 1.0.6.20080726-Test
An unexpected exception has occurred.
Please see the help for details on what to do.
Traceback (most recent call last):
File “guihelper.pyo”, line 165, in _busywrapper
File “fileview.pyo”, line 523, in OnLaunch
IndexError: list index out of range
Variables by last 8 frames, innermost last
Frame _busywrapper in guihelper.pyo at line 167
args = (<ringers.RingerView; proxy of >
method =
kwargs = Keys []
{}
Frame OnLaunch in fileview.pyo at line 523
self = <ringers.RingerView; proxy of >
_ = <wx._controls.ListEvent; proxy of <Swig Object of type ‘wxListEvent *’ at 0xbfff
I thought I should give all the details.
Working from a mac loaded with Leopard. Downloaded the 7/26/2008 bitpim version. Bitpim recognizes my phone perfectly, but as said above it does not work at the last step
Hi, yeah, my LG chocolate is the one that bell mobility and their subsidiary Solo sells, and it’s called just the LG800 I think. Using, bitpim it doesn’t have that brew subfolder, i think it’s 16xxx so I can’t add any ringtones, and when I try transferring with the steps as outlined in the blog, that doesn’t work either, saying an exception has occured.
The BitPim Program does not list the LG VX-8560(Chocolate 3). Should I select the 8550 or is it just not possible to transfer ringtones on this program yet?
I downloaded the Test Version which does have The chocolate 3 in the menu, but the program still does not detect my phone and when I send it to my phone, its reply is
“COM5: Could not open port: (2, ‘Create File’, ‘This system cannot find the file specified.’)
Brad, BitPim does have support for the chocolate 3, at least for leopard. I dont know if it has support on pcs
I was able to get the ringtone onto my Chocolate 3. How do I remove it though? I cant seem to delete it. There is no option and BitPim says it is deleted but then it shows up again. I don’t want to add any more to the phone unless I know I can remove it. If someone knows how to do this please let me know. Thanks
Nevermind on the problem with deleting the ringtone. You have to go into the brew folder on the file system. It is in subfolder mod/10889. By the way, what does brew stand for? Just curious.
Wow. This completely cleared things up for me. Thank you so much…I’ve spent the last five hours trying to get this stuff to work, and only after reading this is everything going smoothly. Thanks again!
When it comes to convert ringtone, exception showed up and said “UnicodeEncodeError: ‘ascii’ codec can’t encode characters in position 59-61: ordinal not in range(128)”….
I have no idea how I can do with it… does somebody know how to figure this out???
Thanks, worked good, took less than ten minutes to make and upload to my phone. I just don’t like dling programs… when in the end bitpim did it all. Thanks again though.
THANK You. This may have been the most well structured set of instructions I have ever read on the internet.
Hi everyone with an LG800 CHOCOLATE from BELL: here is how you get custom ringtones!
First, you need to choose a song you want. Cut it down to about 20-30 seconds, and make the bitrate anything less then 128 kbps. Save this file as an mp3. Next, using the same file, cut it down to about 0.01 of a second. Basically you want to make the file as small as possible. Export this as another file mp3.
Next go to http://www.funformobile.com and go to upload ringtone. Put in your number and provider, and upload the SHORT file. Wait about 5 minutes tops and you will get a text message to your phone with a link to download that file. Download the file and set it as your ringtone.
Next, connect your phone to a PC using Bitpim, and go to the folder brew\ams\17. You will find the short file there, but it will be renamed 17.mp3. Replace the file on your phone with the long actual ringtone. Voila! You have a custom ringtone.
So does it work on the 8550? If it doesn’t, how can you get it to?
Chris: “brew” is short for “homebrew”, an old term reffering to computers that were made at home, being tinkered around from scratch. (this was before home PCs were commonly availible).
Source: my brain’s file cabinet
Hope this helps!
It’s despicable that Verizon locks so many of their phones, though any honest Verizon employee will tell you that they CAN be hacked. My LG VX8500 (Chocolate) with OS version 06 was disabled (from connecting to BitPim). Big bummer since I’d switched phones and wanted to transfer my entire contact list onto my new Chocolate. I installed BitPim 1.0.6 and everything is fine: the data transfer went smoothly and I’m once again happy.
Thanks for this blog and the helpful how-to notes.