The lowdown on ringtone changes in iTunes 7.4.1?
By Chris Ziegler 
posted Sep 12th 2007 1:14PM
posted Sep 12th 2007 1:14PM
Remember how Apple rushed out 7.4.1 on the double after folks hacked 7.4 to enable free ringtones in mere hours? Turns out we may now know exactly what Apple did to patch it up -- and, naturally, how to enable 'em once again. It looks like Apple added new metadata to music in 7.4.1 that was missing in 7.4, a value called "stik" (what that could possibly stand for, we're not sure). Anyway, the value needs to be present and set to "14" on any AAC tune for iTunes to identify and sync it as a ringtone. That's it. Turns out there's an open source package to let you play with the metadata, too, so the whole procedure really couldn't get less expensive. Give it a shot and let us know how it goes!
Now if there was only an easy way to edit songs. Anybody got any freeware/shareware out there?
Audacity is what you want.
The nicest part of this is that people can distribute iTunes/iPhone compatible ringtones themselves. Like a recording artist for instance, or a website, etc. It's really simple to tell end-users to just double-click the file, and then sync it to their iPhone through iTunes (as opposed to asking them to download some other software). Hooray for freebies.
I have 7.4.1 and I was able to sync and get the free ringtones using the method Engadget had on its site a few days ago. I didnt have to set anything to '14'. And I did it all through iTunes - no 3rd party apps required.
Does iphoneringtonemaker still work?
I have an easy solution....
1.Download the previous version of iTunes (http://filehippo.com/download_itunes/?3150) DOWNLOAD VERSION 7.4 NOT 7.4.1 DO NOT UPGRADE iTunes when it asks you if you want to.
2. Use iPhoneRingtoneMaker to send songs to yer phone.... There is a free trial, then buy it for like 15 bucks.... Easiest one out there to use... Then when they update their software to work with 7.4.2 then upgrade yer iTunes....
or you can just use itunes 7.4
convert a song to .wav, edit it in basic windows sound recorder.
then take the .wav file you edited and convert it to .m4a (i use imTOO mpeg converter, it converts to any type of file) then just go into explorer and change the m4a to .m4r and drag it into itunes.
Sounds like a lot typed but its really not at all. i made all my ringers like that and synced them to my phone
Or you could just go to mobile9.com for ringtones and use ifuntastic to drag and drop the song onto the iphone