trimming mp3's to work as ringtones with Nokia / Motorola phones

trimming mp3\'s to work as ringtones with Nokia / Motorola phones

I use a Nokia 7610 with my bluetooth enabled iMac G4 flat panel. To save on phone / MMC memory space, I decided to reduce the quality and trim mp3's / AAC files I have on iTunes which I want to use as a ringtone.

Thus far, I have performed the following steps.
1.) Dragged the mp3 / AAC file to my desktop
2.) Opened the music file using Quicktime (CTRL-Open With - Quicktime 6.5.2)
3.) Copied the music segment I wanted to use and pasted it on a new Quicktime Window.

Questions:
1.) What do I do next? How do I save the resulting clip as an mp3? Choosing the File - Save As option in the menu saves the clip as a Quicktime Movie.
2.) I could only export the file as a *.wav file which is much larger than the clip would be if it could be saved as an mp3.
3.) If music file I clipped was in AAC format (unprotected of course), how do I save it as an mp3?

The long method would be to do as follows:
1.) Export the clip as a *.wav or *.aiff file.
2.) Import same clip into iTunes.
3.) Go to iTunes preference then under Import, select mp3, corresponding bit rate, etc.
4.) CTRL-click on the *.wav / *.aiff clip I just imported then click on Advance - Convert Selection to mp3.
5.) Drag the resultant mp3 to the desktop.
6.) Transfer resultant mp3 clip to the phone via bluetooth.

Is there an easier way of going about this? Considering that iTunes runs on the Quciktime engine, I would think there should be a much easier way of saving the mp3 / AAC clip as an mp3 without going through iTunes and the 6 steps it takes to get this done.

Thanks in advance for any help on this.

 

I just find it strange why an mp3 file opened with Quicktime, edited within Quicktime, can't be saved as an mp3 – especially since Apple's iTunes runs on the Quicktime platform. For a company that's been very successful in providing the best user experience in its programs, Apple seemed to have overlooked this one small feature.