Want to make AI ringtones for your Android phone? Here are my favorite prompts and tips

Over a month ago, I wrote about my experience trying AI ringtones and ultimately how I felt that Gemini was the best tool for the job. My original article got a decent amount of feedback, so I decided to dive a bit deeper into what kind of ringtones I’ve made and the prompts involved in creating them. Even more crucially, I’ve rounded up some tips to ensure your prompt delivers what you’re looking for.

Here are a few of my favorite prompts

Before I get into the prompts, I will warn you that the length of the tones varies quite a bit across my selections. Traditionally, a ringtone is usually only around 30-45 seconds of audio. For basic prompts, that’s easier to achieve. Something I’ve discovered is that the more detailed your prompt is, the longer the song ends up being — regardless of any size limiters you put into a prompt. I might be crazy, but I feel like this has become even more noticeable recently. It was once pretty easy for me to get a 30-40 second ringtone; now I tend to get lengths ranging from 30 seconds to almost three whole minutes.

The good news is that most modern smartphones can take a longer tune and let you customize what part of the track you want to focus on. Even if they don’t, some easy-to-use tools help you work around this (we’ll get to that in the tips section).

Now I understand not everyone is looking for the same thing when it comes to ringtones. You might prefer shorter, loopable tunes. If that’s the case, shorter prompts that make it clear you want a “phone ringtone” can help. If you prefer longer songs, you can edit them yourself. I have some examples of longer-form songs as well.

A simple but fun ringtone for when my son calls

This was something I generated while messing around with my son, because he’s really impatient when he calls or texts. Sometimes I’ll check my phone to find ten missed calls in a short window. He’s a young teen, so not shocking, but I decided to poke fun and had the AI create a little ditty reflecting on his impatience.

I actually started with a more complex prompt, giving it beats per minute and specific elements, and the result wasn’t worth repeating. What ultimately worked in this situation was something simpler:

“Ringtone, rock genre, high energy, upbeat, lyrics around “who’s that ringing? It’s your son. If you don’t pick it up, you better run”.

A playful ringtone for when my mom calls

This is one of the earliest prompts I made and is actually perfectly set at just 30 seconds. I wanted a simple ringtone reminder for when my mom was calling. Something equal parts fun and cheesy, and the result was fairly on point.

The prompt is even simpler here:

Make me a ringtone in the rock genre style, upbeat, lyrics saying “your mom is calling” in repeat, high energy

Don’t forget to take your pills: A heavy metal ballad

This one actually started as a joke, and that’s why I think it’s my absolute favorite tune I’ve ever generated. A few months back, a relative of mine was talking about how he kept forgetting to take his daily medication; I suggested an alarm. This ended up working for him, but he said he wished his phone had more options (he’s not the most tech-savvy).

I decided to make something that would serve as a reminder to take his pills and would playfully jab at how he’s forgotten before. Being that he was really into classic heavy metal, I tried to go with a style that mimicked some of his favorite bands like Metallica and Korn. While I’ve been able to generate some things by saying “inspired by” for video games and more, certain copyrighted materials tend to be more heavily protected here. I wasn’t trying to get it to literally sound like any particular band, but the AI couldn’t tell the distinction.

I had to go through several attempts here, but the tune was actually pretty spot-on once I found the right prompt.

As you’ll see, this prompt is the total opposite of the first few prompts on this list. It’s long, it’s very detailed, and it worked out great. For narrowing down a specific tone, this kind of detail is often needed:

Short song meant for ringtone on phone, heavy metal with thrash influence, fast mid-tempo, thick down-tuned guitars, aggressive palm-muted chugging riffs, punchy double-kick drums, soaring gravelly male vocals, anthemic chorus, high energy, lyrics built around something like “it’s time to take your pills” and alluding to how you kept forgetting so you made this alarm

Zelda-esque tune with full symphony and big energy

As I said, getting an actual artist’s vibe is really hard and will likely require you to play around with different things or have a deeper understanding of music in the first place. It’s much easier for video games. The tune above certainly doesn’t sound like Zelda, as it’s hard to really get that exact vibe without tripping over copyrights. Despite this limitation, it does deliver on an energy and styling that is similar to what you’d expect from classic 3D Zelda games.

The prompt here is fairly simple, but I did make it clear I wanted this fully orchestrated with the French Horns as a major feature. That’s one of the best prompt combinations: Short but specific:

Upbeat, peaceful, featuring a full orchestra with notable French horn presence, a 90s video game era vibe, inspired by Zelda Ocarina of Time soundtrack

Something almost reminiscent of Queen

I like this one a lot as it’s cheesy and just fits the vibe well. That said, I also picked it because it includes a real name and yet it didn’t flag any copyrights. I said “harmonized Brain May-style” and that seemed to work. That’s the big thing to remember here. Sometimes you can word things more than one way to get the result you’re looking for.

This one is one of the longest prompts I’ve ever put together:

A triumphant and theatrical 20-second stadium rock ringtone in the style of 1970s British glam rock. Fast-tempo 115 BPM, highly energetic and dramatic. Add a charismatic, powerful male lead vocal with a wide operatic range, singing an anthemic, soaring melody with massive, dense, multi-layered choral backing harmonies. Driving rock rhythm section with a stomping, hard-hitting drum beat, a melodic bassline, and a brilliant, harmonized Brian May-style electric guitar riff with a rich treble booster tone. Joyful, epic, and larger-than-life. Clean, high-fidelity studio mix.

[Lyrics]:

(Massive choral harmony) Ahhhh—

(Powerfully belt out) Someone is calling!

(Full choir) Reach out and answer

Some things to keep in mind when making a prompt

I’ve used Gemini to make dozens of ringtones and short songs. The truth is that no size fits all. For every song I’ve shared above, I likely made at least three to four attempts that ranged from long prompts with specific instrumentation and details to shorter, detailed prompts, or even ones that are vague as heck. That said, that doesn’t mean there isn’t a pattern to getting the right prompt. Let’s talk about some of the strategies that have helped me, other than those covered above, like using workarounds to describe band styles without calling them by name.

First, get as specific as you can if you know exactly what you are looking for. If you understand the song progression and other elements you are trying to emulate, a specific prompt can do wonders. That said, specific doesn’t mean long.

While long prompts can work, there’s also more room for things to go wrong. The AI has to interpret exactly how you want those details to be implemented, and that’s not an easy feat. If you find the detail didn’t work for a specific ringtone or song style you were looking for, it doesn’t hurt to take a simpler approach. Say what you are roughly aiming for, and leave the rest of the details to chance.

It’s also important to be aware of what version of Gemini you are using. The basic free tier has stronger limits on Lyra 3, usually sticking close to the 30-second mark. If you want really short, loopable ringtones, that’s actually one of the few advantages to not paying. Gemini Plus and Pro have higher caps, which is actually a negative when it comes to ringtones, as they tend to go longer, with a minute being its most common length. Because of how the tool works, adding qualifiers to your prompt like “30 to 45 second maximum” might prompt it to keep it on the shorter side of three minutes, but getting it to exactly 30 seconds is tougher.

One more piece of advice: if your phone’s OS doesn’t already have ringtone editing, you’ll want to get an app. I recommend Ringtone Maker. While I don’t love its ads, it’s an easy-to-use, free app that lets you quickly trim songs if you prefer to keep the length shorter.