Sound Bracelet: An Experiment in Art and Sound

Inspired by The Sound Advice Project, the sound bracelet is a memorable gift to give to your friends and loved ones. Essentially, the sound bracelet is a bracelet in the form of a sound wave. The original project allowed users to submit a 6-second voice recording and for $18, get their voice turned into a sound wave. It was a personal and simple gift.

With that in mind, I set out to make my own, gathering materials that were readily available around the house. You can customize the bracelet to your own voice, making every one truly unique. Your messages can be anything, from a touching "I love you" to a simple "Congratulations." It is a very easy way to make a nice gift for someone.

Step 1: Materials

Most of the supplies for the sound bracelet can be found around the house. You'll also need some basic computer skills. 

• Computer with microphone
• Audacity
• Screen capture software (On Windows, you can use the default "print screen" button. For Macs, press the Apple key + Shift + 3 and release all at the same time. Then, click on the screen with your mouse.)
• Microsoft Word or an image editing software
• Printer
• Hot glue gun
• Ruler
• Scissors (optional)
• Colored Paper (optional)

Comments

[qlocs]

If you really want the sound on there physically, one could use a piece of recording tape(old school tech) and put it in a piece of vinyl tubing for a bracelet. You could also get one of those Edison type cylinder recording machine kits from Japan that records onto plastic cups. Record on the cup, then cut that section of cup out(a ring) and you have a bracelet (a very small one). Maybe try modding it into recording on bigger cups...

[SethS]

I'm going to try this but with steel wire that I'll bend into shape. This is a great and interesting idea!

[smokefire0]

i have a thoery that this may be able to be forged into a metal sound bracelet. any ideas on wat kind of metal would look nice this way?

[minerug]

Instead of forging it, how about just cutting the sound wave shape out of a sheet, heating it up and bending it into a circle?

[flesheater]

i would just go for the standard stainless steel. i it would probably look just as good if it were a plastic. or more of a silicon. then you could actually do color of some kind.

[theawesomeninja]

I like the concept but I'm not too excited about the hot glue look. Maybe you could have a company where you record your voice saying something and again, forging it in metal like smokefire says. that would be cool! Maybe in steel or in aluminum

[imamathguy]

This is really fun. I am imagining some secret message to send to my lady that only we know. Great idea.... off to the laboratory...

[jumpertoad]

wouldnt break?

[JellyWoo]

The goal of this project was to make it from materials you can find around the house. It may not be as sturdy as something you buy at a store but it works. Also, if you pull, it stretches. My advice is to use a thick line of hot glue.

[jumpertoad]

this is awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[JellyWoo]

Thank you.

[PyroMaster007]

im going to make one for my girlfriend that says "i love you" to go with her birthday gift.

[JellyWoo]

Nice!

[PyroMaster007]

my thank yous.

[Sandisk1duo]

too bad you can't scan it in and turn it back into sound

[Samuel C]

I concur. It seems a bracelet with a line rather than a bracelet with a message. However, it is clever to use hot glue to give shape to the bracelet. I am thinking of writing a short motto on a paper and hot-glue it.

[Jack A Lopez]

Exactly what I was thinking. You can't scan it and turn it back into sound.

That's true of this project, and also the disc-bead style bracelets/necklaces that inspired it. See:

http://jewelry.productaday.com/necklace.html
http://www.thesoundadviceproject.com/

The reason why you can't play it back is poor spatial resolution; i.e. these methods destroy all the high frequency information. So even if you tried to play it back, all you'd get is blub-blub-blub.

In case you or anyone else might be interested in making a bracelet that does support playback, the equations below give some insight into how this could work.

Suppose you have a bracelet of length L, encoding T_t seconds of sound. Moreover assume the encoding is done with N discrete samples, so that:

The sample period, or one over the sample frequency, is:
T_s = 1/f_s = T_t/N

The spatial resolution, the length (in inches, mm, etc) of each sample is
a = 1/α = L/N

Finally, the speed at which you have to move the reader over the bracelet is
v = L/T_t = a/T_s = a f_s

So the total time available for the sound sample on the bracelet is:
T_t = L/(a f_s) = (L α)/f_s

As an example, suppose you have a bracelet with length L = 10 inches, printed at 400 dpi (dots per inch), with a sample frequency of 4000 Hz. This gives a total time of:
(10 inch)*(400 dpi) / (4000 s^-1) = 1 s

So that's 1s of pretty low quality sound. The next problem is building a reader capable of resolving tiny 400 dpi printing.

For an idea of what this might look like, imagine a section of old projector-film rolled into a bracelet sized loop. Just the part with the sound track is necessary.

Picture taken from :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:USN16mmSoundtrack.jpg

[mechaninja]

My head just exploded.

[geco4ever]

this is a really cool idea! im gonna try it!

[thecheatscalc]

pretty neat... but it looks a bit inconsistent. what I'd do to improve it and make it look much better is: -take two rulers (metal, or just two rectangular metal rods) and space them about 3/4 cm apart, or far enough so there's a bit of space between the highest and lowest points on the sound. -THEN fill in the hotglue. That way it looks more consistent. neat idea though!

[puffyfluff]

Awesome. Great project, great idea.

[JellyWoo]

Thanks.

[LuminousObject]

Thats really cool.

[JellyWoo]

Thanks you.

[ChrysN]

That's a neat idea, I like it!

[JellyWoo]

Thanks!