Create a Custom iPhone Ringtone (at least as of OSX8)

custom_iphone_ringtone.txt

This was slow and painful, but relative to the "iTunes" way of doing it, it's downright elegant.

This:

  http://everydaylht.com/howtos/desktop/create-ringtones-for-your-iphone-using-linux/

Is basically spot-on, even for OSX8. I had some bumps and took some notes.

I used Audacity to create a wav file. Then:

    $ faac -b 128 -c 44100 -w --title shamisen shamisen.wav
    $ cp -ai shamisen.m4a shamisen.m4r

Also, the iTunes_Control/Ringtones directory and "iTunes_Control/iTunes/Ringtones.plist" file were both missing for me.  I just created them.

I also had to:

    $ sudo nvram boot-args="kext-dev-mode=1"

and then reboot, since this is an unsigned kernel extension and OSX v10.10+ won't allow that.