Given the opportunity to immortalize one’s love in a pithy engraveable slogan, almost everyone seems compelled to maudlin cliche. The calligraphic curlicues of “Forever yours” or “Eternal love” are etched into the bands of millions of lovers who — if not for the paucity of imaginative romance in the whole romance industry — might find a truer and less predictable expression of their love in almost anything at all, from an imprint of a co-mingled genetic sequence to the words “Fine ass bitch.” Just about anything is more romantic than the rote repetition of cliche.
On the other hand, I really like these simple engraved wedding bands by Japanese designer Sakura Koshimizu, who takes the waveform of a lover’s romantic whisper and fires it out of laser to be etched in gold, silver or steel. What the waveform actually says can be anything — an honest expression of fondness or the usual puked-up romantic pablum — but it captures more than just words: it freezes the tone of those early infatuated ‘I love yous’ to be traced and compared for years afterwards, even after you forget what the words sounded like full of meaning.
Yeah, I’m a big, cynical softie.
Yes, I Do Soundwave Ring [Random Good Stuff]
I doubt that there is enough resolution there to reproduce anything that could be understood as speech.
Totally freakin’ awesome.
Pictured above is a bracelet. The rings are here:
http://sakurakoshimizu.blogspot.com/search?q=wedding
and encode the “I do’s” from the ceremony.
I’ve seen this “ring” pop up a lot after I posted it on my ring blog and I’m afraid I may have confused some people. The first picture I posted — the silver one pictured here — is of a cuff, not a ring. (The second photo I posted does show rings.) Also, her name is Sakurako Shimizu, not Sakura Koshimizu. Just wanted to make sure she gets her proper name out there!
http://thecarrotbox.com/news/0811.asp#17
I’ve seen this “ring” pop up a lot after I posted it on my ring blog and I’m afraid I may have confused some people. The first picture I posted — the silver one pictured here — is of a cuff, not a ring. (The second photo I posted does show rings.) Also, her name is Sakurako Shimizu, not Sakura Koshimizu. Just wanted to make sure she gets her proper name out there!
http://thecarrotbox.com/news/0811.asp#17
What they don’t tell you, is that instead of your recording, they just etch the ring with the waveform for Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up”.
j/k
So it’s just a hole? Looks like those jagged edges might hurt a bit when these things are actually worn.
I would fill up the “negative space” with glass, transparent plastic, or some other transparent material, at the very least.
One more thing: since the precision on these waveforms is likely not good enough for adequate audio reproduction, later on, I instead recommend using a free audio codec that’s specialized for low-bitrate voice compression (there’s got to be one) and then just etching the hexadecimal code that corresponds to that file on the ring or bracelet or whatever.
I have one of these, as does my wife.
I’ve encoded the waveform for: “This sound snags all of my angora sweaters”, and it does.
My wife, who is Angoran, recorded the same thing in her native language, and guess what?! No snags, no hangups, nothing.
Creepy.
While this looks cute, how can you playback the recording? Why not etch the recording into grooves similar to those on Edison’s wax cylinders? The ring manufacturer could sell ‘ring players’ or someone could hack together a low tech method of playback if in a “Tom Hanks Castaway” situation.
@ #9: I used to have plastic ribbons form some science toy company etched with such grooves. all you had to to was drag your thumbnail down the ribbon and you would hear it say “science is fun!”… no special “player” required.
My husband, who has First Responder training, is currently curled up on the sofa, going to his Happy Place. “Ring avulsion from hell!” he groans.