Ringtones on the Verizon RAZR V3m: Round Two
It’s been a breeze making a ringtone and sending them to myself via Verizon’s MMS protocol. However, I’m not very keen on wasting all my monthly message allowance. I don’t text or pix message much…but I don’t want to go over my limit either.
Today, I went down to a local Verizon store and purchased a 256 MB microSD card and a USB microSD card adapter. I use Mac OS 10.4 and I cannot use the other sync tools that Verizon sells in their store. They are exclusively for Windows, specifically Windows Media Player 10. But the USB adapter would work on my PowerBook G4.
First off, both of these items (SanDisk brand) come in that annoyingly vaccum-sealed plastic. The type of plastic that isn’t coming apart unless you have some sharp tool to slice it open.
I sliced open the two packages and took out the contents. The microSD card is about the size of a fingernail. The card reader is only slightly bigger than SanDisk’s miniCruzer USB drives.
I turned off my phone, opened up the back and popped out the battery. There is a very small slot just below (not underneath) where the battery sits. I slipped the card into the slot and then popped the battery back in and turned on the phone.
After popping the card in, you will then need to go to: SETTINGS & TOOLS > SYSTEM > DEVICE INFO > STORAGE DEVICES. You should then see two items; “Phone” and “TRANS-T-Flash”. The “TRANS-T-Flash” item is your new microSD card. Highlight “TRANS-T-Flash” and then select “Options”. From there, you will need to format your card before you can use it.
After formatting your card, you can now use it to store media from your phone. You can transfer music over (Verizon’s player plays .wma files), move your photos to your computer from the phone, and even add ringtones. You can also set your card as the default storage device on your phone so that tranferring files is easier in the future.
I had over 100 photos on my phone. None of them were on my microSD card. I had to manually move each one over to the microSD card. I moved most, but not all of them.
Adding ringtones is a little more difficult than I was hoping. I haven’t completely gotten this to work, but it’s “mostly” worked. For some reason, Verizon’s phones don’t make it easy for you to just drag and drop files over and use them as ringtones. You have to go a good bit out of your way to make them work.
You first go to “GET IT NOW” and then select “Get Tunes & Tones”. On that screen, choose “Record New”. This will allow you to record a short message on your phone. The file only needs to be a few seconds long. After recording the message, leave it the default name (this is important) and make sure that you’ve saved it to your card. You can tell that it’s on the card because a large, black “C” will appear to the left of the filename.
After recording the file and making sure it’s on your card, turn your phone off and pop out the battery and the card. Pop the card in the card reader. You should see the file in the root directory of your card. That’s where all the media from your phone is stored. The only exception is that your VCast purchased music is in a sub-directory on the card.
Take your .mp3, .wma, .mid, or .wav file and drop it in the root directory of your card. You should see a file called “10202093_091.qcp” (or similar file name) on the card. That is the voice file you recorded. Copy that file name, including the .qcp extension and then rename the file something other than that name. Rename your ringtone the name of the other file (”10202093_091.qcp”). Make sure that it has the .qcp extension and not .qcp.mp3. Delete the original file from the phone.
Put your card and battery back in and then boot up your phone. Go to “GET IT NOW” and “Get Tunes and Tones”. If everything worked out properly, you should see the same generated file name on the phone at the end of your tones list. It will have a microphone as the icon to the left of it. Also, make sure that the black “C” is next to the file name. DO NOT rename the file or move it from the card to your phone. This will mess up your ringtone.
Now, go to Tools & Settings > Sound Settings > Ring Styles > Master Volume Detail > Change. Now, highlight “Calls” and then hit “Change”. Scroll through your list of tones. Hit the up (^) button to scroll to the end of the list. Your ringtone file should be one of the last files on the list. Highlight it and let it play. If you didn’t try to rename the file or move it from the card to the phone, it should play the audio from the original audio file you created on your computer.
If it works, congratulations! You just tricked your phone into thinking the computer created audio file was the original .qcp file you recorded on your phone. It’s hacky and it’s buggy. I’ve found that the “email” method (see previous post) has worked the best for me so far. I’m not giving up on this, I’m going to continue hacking around with it to see if I can get it to work more effectively.
Both of the methods I’ve posted about will not void the warranty/insurance of your phone. There are other methods that will (using BitPim), and I’m trying to hack it without going that route. It would have been nice if Verizon had unlocked some of the Bluetooth features, but until that happens…you can always try these routes.
December 12th, 2006 23:36
thanks a bunch, this was exactly what i was lookin for because i could not seem to get the mindow media sync to work or even recognize my phone. i purchased the $30 essential music kit basically for nothing. just wanna thank you again.
one more thing, my dad wants to use his razr for basically a photo storage device. is it possible to save the pictures straight on the sd card via the card reader and have them viewable onthe razr? because i’ve tried to figure it out for my dad, but i dont know where the pictures get saved, or am i just going about this all wrong. thank you again so much for you time, looking forward to your response
December 14th, 2006 22:11
Jonathan
I’ve been able to drop photos onto and pull them off my microSD card just fine. Here’s how I do it:
I noticed after I put the card in my phone for the first time and saved a photo on it, the phone dropped the photo into the main directory on the card.
If you look on the card while you have it in the reader, you’ll notice all the subdirectories in the card. For some reason, the phone puts the files in the main directory on the card and not the sub directories. I still haven’t figured out why the subdirectories are even created.
So, if you want to put some photos on the card you can just drag them onto your card from your computer.
If I’m not mistaken, you need to make sure the photos are in .jpg format. And, you may need to make certain they’re at 1280×1024 resolution or lower. 1280×1024 is the max that the camera on the Razr takes photos at.
Hope that helps and answers your question.
December 21st, 2006 15:35
I had trouble until I realized that I’d set my Finder to “hide extensions”. The files actually had .mp3 appended AFTER the .qcp, and wouldn’t work. Once I fixed that, all went well.
Thanks so much for the tips!
December 21st, 2006 23:00
No problem!
Glad it helped!
December 28th, 2006 02:31
I have a PowerBook G4 with Tiger, and I was wondering what was the easiest way to cut the song to make it shorter and switch the format to MIDI or some other format that would let me set it as a ringtone? I did all of the above exactly and it works, all but being able to set it as a ringtone, it plays, but I can’t set it as a tone.
January 11th, 2007 14:15
I’m having the same results as TD. I can get the ringtone to show up in GET IT NOW but I can’t select it as a ring. Any ideas?
January 17th, 2007 10:03
Yea, have they updated the phones software to copy protect the micro SD card now? I just bought one, followed the instructions but whenever i try to drag and drop a file on the card i get ‘write protection’ nonsense
January 18th, 2007 22:29
Hmmm. Perhaps you have your microSD card locked?
If you are using a card adapter and you have the “lock” switch turned on you will not be able to write to your card.
And for TD and Aaron, try emailing your ringtones to yourself and saving the sounds on the phone. I found that worked better (for me) than trying to trick the phone into thinking the .qcp file you wrote over is “the original one”.
February 6th, 2007 08:01
I followed your instructions to install the microcard, but didn’t see how to set the phone to default to it. Also, is there a way to take music on the Mac and convert it to .wma format to use on the phone? I found programs that do the reverse and convert .wma to .mp3, but my sister was hoping to use her Chocolate to play music and I’ve been unable to help her there. Thanks a lot.
February 17th, 2007 20:07
my files dont show the file extensions, how do i show the extensions?
February 18th, 2007 18:38
how do i hide the extentions?
March 7th, 2007 13:35
I’m having the same experience as john. I formated the disk using my Verison RAZR 3VM phone. I cannot write to it outside of my phone. Not in windows, not in mac os x. Not as root, either. no matter what I do I get the write protection message. This is with the card unlocked.
March 26th, 2007 23:02
I just bought a 1 GB Trans Flash card for my RAZR. Whenever I try to format it, a message pops up and says Changed: Label T-Flash. It shows to be still unformatted. What do I need to do? Thanks!
April 19th, 2007 19:17
Hey, I tried this hack, but for anybody with the newest verizon v3m you don’t even have to try. Whenever an audio file has been moved to the card or originally recorded to the flash card the phone will not allow it for selection as a ringtone even when it’s the dead air you recorded in the first place. Stick to the email method!
April 22nd, 2007 19:41
My Verizon V3M is only a few months old and this does not work. I can see and play the “trick” file (saved in the root directory) from the Get Tunes & Tones menu list – BUT it does not appear in the list of ringtones in the Sound Settings menu. The jerks at Verizon must have developed a patch to block people from doing this. When our contract time is up, Verizon will never get our business again.
April 30th, 2007 16:15
What is the email method? I have the newest version of the v3m from Verizon and I’ve been trying all day and it doesn’t work.
May 6th, 2007 21:14
The email method is to create the ringtone on your computer and then email the file as an attachment to yourphonenumber@vzwpix.com. Be sure to substitute your actual phone number (all 10 digits) for “yourphonenumber”.
Works for me every time.
May 29th, 2007 20:24
Nic,
I tried your “tricking the phone” method on my new V3m from Verizon, and it worked fine. I just got the phone a week ago, so I’m not sure what the others are doing wrong, but I can tell you what I was. I originally had my “Hide extensions” checked. I was also copying the .qcp file name, then immediately deleting the file before renaming it and the .mp3 file. I don’t know if this was part of the problem, but I knew of the trick method a few days ago and have just about gone crazy trying to get it to work. After reading your instructions, I was able to do it first try. Thanks
July 2nd, 2007 11:07
I tried using the “trick” to put MP3 ringtones on my razor, following all of the steps correctly, and I cannot set them as ringtones, but I can play them in the “Get Tunes & Tones” menu. The other issue is that when I e-mail myself the same MP3’s, the sound quality and volume are terrible. Using it as a ringtone would mean I wouldn’t know when I was getting a call. Any other suggestions?
August 20th, 2007 01:58
I have Kubuntu (Linux) as my Operating system.
if i wanna use the E-Mail method, how about would i do that? I need to edit the song and Reduce bass, and add more Treble. Thanks.
September 12th, 2007 15:44
Yeah, looks like they are filtering out the files now, if they are .mp3, .mid, or .qcp. I’m totally boycotting them now.
September 12th, 2007 15:44
Filtering out of incoming e-mail, I mean.
September 12th, 2007 18:30
Emailing a picture to my cell phone number worked for me but the question is does it cost anything to do it that way? Meaning, is it like downloading a file from the get it now service?
September 18th, 2007 17:18
sadly thats just like texting and texting costs ten dollers a month or a certain amount of money for each teaxt without the service : (
October 7th, 2007 18:13
thanks for the post, although the method i used to get the files on my phone was different, the whole recording/renaming/overwriting thing was just what i needed to use my own ringtone. :)
October 23rd, 2007 07:39
I am on a MacBookPro and and have a RazorV3m, when I insert my SD card into the reader the Mac says “The disc you inserted was not readable by this computer”, which surprises me because a Mac can read anything. Any suggestions?
October 25th, 2007 23:02
Hmmm…most likely your card is “locked”. You may need to pop it into a microSD/TransFlash Adapter and click the “lock” into the “off” position.
Either that or the card needs to be formatted. Have you formatted it with your phone yet? I believe the phone formats it into Fat32 and thus it should be readable on Mac OS X.
I haven’t had any issues with my PowerBook G4 not being able to read the card except for when I had it in the adapter and it was “locked”.
November 15th, 2007 23:00
Just thought I’d let you all know I just got my v3m in the last week and have successfully used the micro card “trick” to add ringtones to my phone. Key thing is to make sure you are not hiding you file extensions in you folders. If the extensions are hidden you will not be able to save the file with the .qcp extension, it will be saved as .qcp.mp3 which will not work.
To set your file as the ringtone, you can’t do it from Tunes & Tones, you must follow instructions in article above.
Also, to add music to your micro SD card directly, you will first need to convert to .wma format then put them into the “my music” folder on the card. You cannot set these songs as ringtones.
December 18th, 2007 00:17
i have done everything and even followed the instructions to change my ringtone through Settings and Tools however it doesn’t pop up when i want to change it.
February 18th, 2008 23:17
NEED HELP!!!!!!!! i have the verizon razr V3m and i first recored the song (27 seconds worth), sent it to myself by pix messaging, recieved the message, opened it and pressed option, then save sound. then i went to music and tones, and its under my sounds. i cant figure out what to do now, its not under the my ringtones section. need help on what to do.
February 18th, 2008 23:19
disreguard, it was for the first ringtone forum
February 20th, 2008 16:20
I read your post which is a few years old. Have you done any more lately with converting MP3’s to ringtones for your Razr Phone. I have a V3m and used a program called Audio Converter to make an mp3 into a .qcp file. I transfered them to the Vcard and loaded them into my razr, but even though everything looked good and they play, they won’t come up when you try to convert them to ringtones. That may require the trick of saving a file on the phone then renaming to that my selection. It would be so easy if Verizon would just take their hands out of our pockets…
Thanks for your original posts. They were helpful.
July 10th, 2008 17:23
hi… i used to have a verizon motorola razr v3m. it broke and now i have the lg. I really miss the ringtone i used to have on my razr!!!!!!!!! Is there any place where I can download the default ringtones that are on the razr v3m? i can’t remember what the ringtone was called, it was a techno/nightclub sounding song…thanks!