I am not nearly young or cool enough to make this happen

November 9, 2009 3:53 PM

I thought this would be simple, but it isn't. I want to purchase a song as the new ringtone of my At&t Blackberry Pearl, and I have hit all sorts of roadblocks.

So the song is Nelly Furtado's "Manos al aire", more specifically, I want JUST the chorus to be my ringtone, and damned if I can't make that happen. I am not particularly web or phone savvy, but somehow in the past, I managed to make "Man of constant sorrow" and "Cigarettes and chocolate milk" as my ringtones. Now I want a song that is one of those chart-toppers, and I can't make it happen without purchasing a subscription! I want to pay my US$ 2.49 and make this happen, but it isn't working, even on the AT&T website (which asks me to enter my type of cellphone, and after I do so, the site just shuts down). Help?!?

posted by msali to Shopping (9 answers total)

Forget ringtone websites. Go to Amazon or some other download site of your choice and buy an MP3 of the song. If you have it on CD already, just rip it using iTunes.

Once you have it in MP3 form, use garageband (mac) or audacity (pc) to strip out everything except the chorus. Save as MP3 again. Put it on your blackberry and select it as your ringtone.

I don't have a pearl, but on my curve (which should be basically the same) I can make any sound a ringtone whether it's an mp3, a voice note, or whatever.

That's your solution, I think.
posted by crapples at 5:05 PM on November 9, 2009 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: Man oh man, I don't want much from this world - I just want the chorus from this song on my phone. For those of you who don't speak Spanish, "Manos al aire" means something to the effect of, "I give up", which is just where I am right now. I can't get into it, it is personal, but HOLY COW, would it mean a lot to me to be able to hear manos al aire at this point. tia
posted by msali at 6:33 PM on November 9, 2009

Response by poster: PS - It needn't be free, just not a subscription. A one off, if you will.
posted by msali at 6:36 PM on November 9, 2009

Best answer: I came here about to tell you to do it the way crapples suggested, only to find that you sort of shot it down.

It could be your browser being somehow incompatible with AT&T's website. For what it's worth, I just did the following operation:
- Went to AT&T's website
- Searched for "ringtones"
- Got to their media page
- Searched for "manos al aire"
- Picked a track that looked right, clicked buy ($2.49, like you said)
- Selected the BlackBerry Pearl 8120 (don't know if this is your model)
- Finally got to the page where you can put in your number
All in Firefox running on Linux, and again in Safari on Mac OS Snow Leopard, and again in Firefox running on Snow Leopard. No crashes.

If you try again and still can't get it working through AT&T's website, and can't find it through any other service without a subscription, crapples' method will absolutely work. If you want to go that route, I believe you'll be able to email the finalized mp3 to yourself and save it to your phone's memory.

Sorry I couldn't be any more helpful than that, but I don't really have a lot of experience with these pay ringtone services. If you'd like help doing it the other way (which I do have experience with -- I used to have a Pearl on Verizon and set a song as my alarm) let me know.
posted by malthas at 9:34 PM on November 9, 2009

So, can you tell us the problem with crapples' suggested method? It might not be as easy as you'd like, but it should work just fine.
posted by soelo at 7:27 AM on November 10, 2009

Response by poster: Soelo, it's not that crapples' suggestion isn't excellent, it is. I am just a lazy shit, and want this to be as easy as it seems like it should be.
posted by msali at 9:18 AM on November 10, 2009

I understand, you want it work the way they say it should. Since malthus seemed to be able to get further than you could on the website, you could try using another computer. If that's not possible, I think a call to AT&T Wireless should be your next step, since they'll be able to walk you through the purchase and maybe nail down the problem.

One last thing, make sure the ringtone is the chorus that you want and random verse =)
posted by soelo at 9:52 AM on November 10, 2009

*and not a random verse*
posted by soelo at 9:53 AM on November 10, 2009

Response by poster: Follow-up: It was my browser. I have been using Google Chrome, and the AT&T website wasn't playing nice. Once I switched browsers, I got the song, and it's exactly the part I wanted, "Y yo no tengo armas, para enfrentarte, pongo mis manos, manos al aire" (Basically, I can't fight you anymore, I give up - not a literal translation, but that's pretty much what it means). Thanks for everyone's help. I love metafilter.
posted by msali at 10:19 AM on November 10, 2009