Every once in a while I have to prove that I am, in fact, a nerd.

I personally love 8-bit video game music. I read an article in the Boston Globe this morning about the best video game soundtracks, and it only referenced current music. Very disappointing, as while recent video game soundtracks have improved (I can’t disagree with the article citing Fallout 3 and Bioshock), they’re not nearly as memorable as the blips and bleeps of old school games.

And what better way to remember old school games than hearing them every time your phone rings? Here are the instructions for converting any video game music into an iPhone ringtone.

Find video game music.

When looking for NES sounds, you’re going to run into a lot bad .mp3s, and a lot of junk recreated .midi files. Real NES music will be in a .NSF format (which stands for NES sound format), which is basically the music data ripped out of a ROM in a small format file.

Export the file to WAV.

If you find NES music already in this format, you can skip this step. If you’re going from .NSF files, I recommend Audio Overload (OS X, Windows, and Linux). Not only will it handle .NSF files, it plays almost every other console music file you can find. It has a simple interface, and an “Export to WAV” option. Even better, when exporting to a WAV file, you can set how much of the music should be exported. Set it to 30 seconds for a ringtone.

Convert the WAV.

I use iTunes, because it’s easy. Import the WAV file into iTunes, right click on it, and select “Create AAC Version”. If there’s no option for this, go into the iTunes Preferences > General > Import Settings and change it to the AAC Encoder. Convert the file to AAC, then find the file in Finder (or Explorer).

Change the extention of the file from .m4a to .m4r.

Re-import it into iTunes, and it will show up under your ringtones.

That’s it!
Links:

• Zophar’s Domain – The theme for almost every NES game
• Overclock Remix – Full game NSF rips, so you can find your favorite level from the games to rip. I personally recommend digging through Contra, Castlevania, and Mega Man 2, there are some classics there.
• Audio Overload – Video game sound format player that can export to .wav files.