Early this year our Soundwave Ring was featured along with other unique personal rings on Buzzfeed's " 17 wedding rings that go above and beyond" . Check it out here:
The author seems to think that your encrypted sound wave message can not be read. In her words: " ....because seriously, there is no real way for them to know what you said." Guess what? Sound waves can be read!
There is no question about how instrumental Alexander Graham Bell research in the field of sound, sound waves and communication was. Did you know he worked closely with the deaf? It was his goal to teach the deaf how to perfect their speech. His early research included drawing sound waves on smoked glass by tracing their vibrations. He word use the image of the sound wave to teach the deaf how to pronounce the word properly.
Patrick Feaster has done some fascinating research into images and sound and has successful been able to play back old recordings which can be heard on his blog post: "how to play back a picture of a sound wave" .
And of course there is an app for that! This app can read images of sound waves and translate them into sounds: http://sploid.gizmodo.com/watch-this-magical-app-translate-analog-images-into-sou-1580732709
While each sound wave is unique to the individual the all have defining properties. After working with sound waves and people in love for over 15 years I can identify the the words " I love you" from looking at the image of the sound wave. People who study linguistics are actually taught how to read the variations in sound waves to identify vowel sounds and consonants. For example vowel sounds are elongated and consonants are tall and sharp peaks. This Soundwave Necklace says "Love". You can see how the hard letter "L" sound is a higher peak then the "ove" sound.
For those of you who do not feel like studying linguistics to read your Custom Soundwave Ring rest assured all Soundwave Jewellery comes packaged with an audio CD so you can still hear your loved ones message.
It was a pleasure to welcome back Milo's parents into the studio to create a second piece for this dog tag necklace. It features the voice of their third child. (Don't worry the second one wasn't forgotten! I was blessed enough to have made a piece for Milo's mother as well.)
I wrote about having little Milo in the studio for one of my first blog posts back in 2012.
https://soundwavejewellery.com/baby-milos-first-words/
I love making this type of Soundwave Jewellery because I feel it is truly something to be cherished as a family heirloom and something can be passed on in future years.
Every parent waits patiently for their baby's first words. In general baby's start talking between the ages of 12-18 month. It is not uncommon for baby's first words to be momma or dada. Science has linked this occurrence to sound patterns.
http://www.livescience.com/32191-why-are-mama-and-dada-a-babys-first-words.html
Check out these funny first words:
http://www.parents.com/baby/development/talking/moms-speak-out-on-babys-hilarious-first-words/
What were your baby's firsts words? Or maybe they haven't spoken them yet? If so get your smart phone ready so you can capture a piece of their history!
Custom Soundwave Dog Tags and Custom Soundwave Necklaces are perfect ways to commemorate the occasion.
This sterling silver Soundwave Bracelet is a real beauty.
The cuff bracelets take a lot of work to complete but when they are finished its really worth it. They truly are unique pieces of art.
This is a sterling silver bracelet is inset with palladium. Palladium is a grey metal and silver is a bright white metal. This gives a nice subtle contrast between the wave and the polished outside.
The pieces are all run through a magnetic tumbler. This is a different tumbler then the first tumbler used. The first tumbler hardens the metal after soldering or casting. This second tumble has smaller shot which can make its way into the small crevasses of the sound wave.
It brightens up the sound wave and adds a texture which makes the sound wave sparkle like snow on a sunny winters days!
I have started a new collection! This is a sneek peak of the first piece in the new Soundwave Jewelry roster: "Love Necklace"
In order to get the colour inside the sound waves of the soundwave jewellery I create I use a process called electroplating. In the jewellery industry we simply call it plating. Plating uses an electronic current to coat one metal in another metal. In this picture I am getting these necklaces ready for plating.
Pieces need to be nice and clean in order for the second metal to adhere to the first metal. They need to be free of all grease and dirt. Part of the process to get them nice and clean is the use of the ultrasonic cleaner. This is a machine that uses sound waves to clean grease and dirt off the surface of metal. Soundwaves cleaning Soundwave Jewelry !! I love it
Language and voice work closely with the laws of manifestation.
Energy follows thought.
Thoughts are given life through vocalization.
Your voice creates a vibration which gives energy a direction in which to manifest.
Our future is being shaped by the vibrations of our thoughts and words!
Oops! I made this ring a half size too small. Mistakes happen but it is important to know the proper way to fix them.
The are a few ways of sizing a ring. Some rings can be stretched by hammering them against a steel mandrel. This leaves hammer marks out the outside of the ring which need to be filed, sanded and re-polished. That technique is not an option here with this beautiful soundwave already engraved on the outside, hammering it would surely damage the design.
In order to achieve this sizing I needed to grind it out from the inside using my favourite titanium rotary file. It is quite aggressive and created that big pile of metal shavings! These shaving tend to get stuck in your hands like little splinters.
It sounds very luxurious to have splitters of gold in your hands but in reality the really hurt if don't pick them out with tweezers right away. Luckily goldsmiths always have tweezers around. They are used to pick up hot metal when soldering, position delicate design elements and sort through and examine stones. I usually use my prized stone tweezers for this job. These tweezer are only used for stones therefore they are sharp and most importantly clean.
As with all jewellery techniques it's important to be patient and go slow and steady. You want to make sure you are removing material evenly so the walls of the rings stay the same thickness all the way around. This requires a steady hand and a gentle touch.
Once the correct size is reached a hand file is used to smooth out the deep marks the rotary file has created. Then three or four grits of sandpaper are used to prepare the ring for polishing. Polishing involves two or three polishing compounds which leave a greasy film on the surface of the metal. In between polishing compounds it is important to clean your piece so you do not contaminated your polishing buffs. Cleaning is done using an ultrasonic cleaner, it actually uses soundwaves to remove the dirt and greasy from the ring.
When polishing is completed the ring is steamed cleaned with a machine which uses heat and pressure to create steam. This removes any residue from the surface of the ring and steams away water marks so the ring is ready for presentation!
Yesterday I finished this pair of Custom Soundwave Rings in white gold . I love making wedding rings, it is such a privilege to be asked to help commemorate such a joyous life event. Creating something that will be worn everyday and become truly a part of someone can sometimes be a lot of pressure! As with all my work I always work hard to make sure that no detail is overlooked. Nothing leaves the studio unless I would wear it myself with pride.
When the bride received the rings she immediately gave me a call. My heart jumped into my throat, my first thought was that something must be wrong with the order. I took a deep breath and prepared to listen and get my problem solving cap on.
As it turns out she was calling to tell me she was thrilled with the rings! Whew! I was thankful for another happy customer and humbled by her effort to take the time to call.
It made me realize how uncommon communicating by phone is these days. Hearing someones voice adds a different dimension to communication. We have all been guilty of reading too much (or too little) into a text message or an email. I'm sure all of us have learned that an email is not the right medium to express sarcasm. Ask anyone over 30 and they will tell you that dating was much easier before the text message. Hours have definitely been spent debating over the meaning of these written communications. We even go so far as to read these correspondences to others to gather their opinions on the matter.
When we communicate vocally we hear the small intonations in a persons voice. We can feel their vibrations. It is these vibrations that keep us connected to each other. We need to listen to respond and be present in the moment. I immediately know if my mom is scrolling through FB while we are on the phone. You can feel when the person is not paying attention and it doesn't feel good because there is a loss of connection. This connection we feel on the phone is completely absent from text messages. In fact when communicating through text we expect people to be disconnected because we are as well. . It's kind of like saying "I want to share this with you but I don't want to deal with your response right now" There is no hiding on the phone. Your silence will defiantly be challenged with a " Hello? Are you still there?".
A phone call happens in the moment, there is no hiding. It is real. You cannot write and rewrite, delete and start over. There is an honesty in this form of communication. There is more of a flow to the conversation. It is not being interrupted by twitter notifications or an instagram post.
A good phone conversation is a unique, one of a kind experience shared between two people. It cannot be replicated or cc'd to a group. It is like a little gift. The phone is such a pleasant way to communicate. I immediately called a friend just to say hi. Call someone today!!!
This is the phonautograph, it is the earliest known sound recording device!
Invented by Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville in 1860 it is said to be the first device to have captured a recording of the human voice. Similar to the phonograph invented by Thomas Edison, the phonautograph inscribed the visual image of sound waves onto a rotating cylinder. This means that in recorded history we have only been able to see sound waves for 155 years. That qualifies as recent history!
The technology to hear the recordings he created was only recently developed. In fact his recording itself was only discovered in 2008 and is know as the earliest recording of singing predating Edison's recording by 28 years.
Apparently Scott's intention was never to play back his recordings it was to see a visual representation of his voice. He was deeply invested in the study of stenography and hoped to create a form of stenography which could accurately record a whole conversation. Ahead of his time was Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville!
Obviously I feel an affinity towards Mr. Scott de Martinville. I like to think that I am continuing the work he started. Of course I can not do this with out the help of all my amazing clients, so in essence we are recording history together.
In order to record history objects of quality must be created so they can stand the test of time. Jewellery is a perfect medium to do so if it is created using quality material and proper craftsmanship. Fashion jewellery is fun for play however when grandma passes and the time comes to look into her personal treasure chest items of low quality are usually discarded. It is my personal mission to make sure that your recorded memories are created with the thought and integrity they deserve so we can all learn from them in the future.
I hope Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville would be proud.
At the beginning of this year Soundwave Jewelry was feature in this article by Bill Taylor regarding wedding band trends.
Check it out!
Back to Wedding ring trends for 2012: Personalized bands
January 26, 2012
Bill Taylor
A hundred years from now, your great-granddaughter comes across your wedding ring in an old jewellery box.
As she admires it, she wonders what her great-grandfather might have said to his bride-to-be when they were young and full of hope for the future.
So she rolls the ring across an ink-pad and then across a sheet of paper, which she then scans into her laptop. A little digital manipulation and, across the century, her forebear speaks to her!
This is designer Danielle Crampsie’s “Soundwave Ring,” a wedding band that boasts something even Prince William’s bride, Kate Middleton, doesn’t have on her ring: A voice.
When Crampsie is designing rings for a couple, she can record either their voices pledging their love (or whatever) or a favourite piece of music. She then prints a computer read-out of the sound wave and engraves it on the jewellery.
“It becomes living history. It’s a piece of you that will endure,” says Sarah Hamel, who runs Made You Look, a Queen St. W. shop that provides workspace for about 20 self-employed jewellery designers, including Crampsie, and sells jewellery from more than 100 local designers.
These are not your great-grandmother’s wedding bands!
• Deborah Lavery will etch you and your spouse-to-be’s fingerprints onto each other’s ring.
• Zsolt Szekely combines gold and cocobolo wood into rings that are distinctive and durable. “Cocobolo has about the same wear-rate as gold and better than silver,” says Hamel, adding it’s cheaper than an all-gold band.
• Jon Pollack works with titanium and Delrin, a robust plastic compound used in joint-replacement surgery and available either in black or white.
• Andrea Golden uses the 17th-century Japanese technique of mokume-gane to create intricate laminates of different metals.
“Those are just a handful of examples,” says Hamel. “We encourage clients to pick a designer and meet with them before they commission a piece.
“It’s not so much following trends or even creating trends. But we want to break down old-fashioned ideas.”
Two of Crampsie’s clients are just leaving, both giving her a warm hug. They’re musicians, she says, and their rings will have sound waves “one an octave higher than the other.”
Her earrings are sound waves, too, for a line from a song: “On a bus full of empty seats, who wants to sit with me?”
Rising gold prices mean more people are choosing composite rings, Hamel says, or bringing in “old gold, passed on from various family members that they want turned into something.”
Wedding bands don’t have to be flashy, she says. “Something with a sound wave or fingerprint etching is purely for the couple. It’s special.”
Nor do the rings have to match.
“There may be a little anxiety if one wants one thing and the other something different. But you can have two completely different rings made by the same artist, or have something engraved that links the two.
“Our customers tend not to have the old-school mindset. They regard it as buying a little piece of art. We find, too, that where engagement rings seem to be all about the girl, with wedding bands, it’s the guy’s chance to express himself.”
Birks, which has 35 stores across Canada, has rings starting at about $600, says spokesperson Eva Hartling, and rising to the high side of $100,000.
“But that would be for an eternity-style ring with diamonds all the way around,” says Hartling from Birks’ Montreal headquarters.
Price is definitely a factor for most customers, with some opting for platinum over gold. Men, especially, are also choosing silver or titanium, she says.
“With gold bands, women are going back to slimmer styles; much slimmer than, say, the late ’90s, early 2000s ,” Hartling adds. “That’s partly for economic reasons.”
With fashion jewellery, she says yellow gold — more typical of the 1970s — is starting to make a comeback. But there’s no sign yet of that being the choice for wedding bands. “White gold has been the choice for more than a decade.”
Some women want a wedding band with a stone. Styles include micro-pavé, with the ring literally “paved” with tiny diamonds, and large pavé, with bigger but fewer stones.
Hartling says most couples go for different style bands, especially if the woman’s has a stone. Same-sex couples tend to choose matching bands.
As for Kate Middleton’s ring, it hasn’t had much impact here. Nor has Prince William’s decision not to wear a ring.
“That’s Europe versus North America,” Hartling says. “North American men traditionally wear a wedding band.”
Choose wisely
A wedding ring is more than just a simple band of gold. Sarah Hamel offers tips on choosing the right one:
• For a gold ring, budget about $1,000 for the metal alone. Depending on size and weight, it may be more or less, but that’s a realistic starting figure.
• Try on a lot of rings. Just like clothes on the rack, rings that look good at first may not suit you when you try them on.
• Men who have never worn a ring before may “gravitate toward something chunky.” Hamel warns them they need to be comfortable carrying a bunch of grocery bags with their wedding band on.
• Don’t worry about what styles other people are wearing. Go with what works for you.
• Don’t go too wild with your design ideas. Hamel says wedding bands follow certain formulas for a reason. “If you want a crazy fashion ring, come back later and we’ll talk!”
— Bill Taylor
http://www.thestar.com/living/article/1121795--wedding-ring-trends-for-2012-personalized-bands
