Soundwave tattoos are unique tattoo designs created from audio clips that can be scanned and played back via a smartphone app. The process was pioneered by an augumented reality app called Skin Motion, developed by Nate Siggard in 2017. Soundwave tattoos are an extension of scannable tattoos, but they work only with audio files. These soundwaves are unique and produced by an app called Skinmotion. Users can upload their desired audio onto the app, generating a unique soundwave for them to copy. A tattoo artist transfers the soundwave into permanent ink on your skin, and when you want to hear the clip, you “scan” your arm using a smartphone app.
The process involves recording your chosen audio message and converting it into a visual soundwave pattern that will be tattooed onto your skin. Soundwave tattoos are a blend of art and technology, showing that tattoos are not just ink on skin anymore. They visually represent the soundwave of a specific audio clip, such as a song snippet, a loved one’s voice, or even your dog’s bark. Up to a minute of audio can be “recorded” in this way. A tattoo artist transfers the soundwave into permanent ink on your skin, and when you want to hear the clip, you scan your arm using a smartphone app.
All three tattoo styles follow the creation and activation process. The idea behind this tattoo style is that it allows you to play an audio file from a tattoo. It’s designed to mirror the shape of a waveform of a recording. When the user opens the app and points the camera on their mobile device at the tattoo, it recognizes the shape of the soundwave and plays back. The process was pioneered by an augumented reality app called Skin Motion.
| Article | Description | Site |
|---|---|---|
| Explaining How Those “Soundwave” Tattoos Actually Work | A tattoo artist transfers the soundwave into permanent ink on your skin. Then, whenever you want to hear the clip, you scan your arm using a smartphone app. | core77.com |
| Regarding sound wave tattoos | In short, the company that makes these scannable sound wave tattoos actually just upload your recording into their cloud account, so when you … | reddit.com |
| Soundwave tattoos: turning sound into memories | How do Soundwave Tattoos work? … It’s really very simple: Upload a song snippet or sound to the Skin Motion website. Skin Motion then generates a Soundwave … | blog.teufelaudio.com |
📹 SKIN MOTION – Soundwave Tattoos You Can Hear With an App
Welcome to the future of tattoos, with soundwave tattoos you can hear using a phone app. If you’re not content for your tattoos to …
📹 Soundwave Tattoos In Los Angeles Ink Expedition
Nate Siggard, a tattoo artist, is bringing tattoos into the 21st century with augmented reality. He designs soundwave tattoos where …
This is amazing. It totally gives tattooing a whole other deeper meaning then just a visual image. Now imagine if people were to be able to create and register not only sound waves but many other types of tattoos into the data base to then either be able to play back a story or the meanings behind them.
Wait so all it was, is a recording that is saved on the app when it recognises the lines, it plays the recording, so could you get a recording attached to a unique pattern or symbol? Thatll be dope getting a recording attached to a symbol, than you and your friends, all family could get a matching symbol with an attached recording
For people who believe this. The tattoo is uploaded to the site. You pay to activate it, get a tattoo and then use their app to play it. How does it work? Well when you upload the audio file, the site creates a unique barcode for the sound. When the app reads it, it just replays the audio from the site. There’s no cool shenanigans
This really hit me hard since I lost my dad this year back in March to cancer and I spent my 32nd birthday with him at the hospital just us two, I actually told him I wasn’t coming so I can surprise him so before I made it to the hospital he called me and I missed the call and he left me a voicemail saying happy birthday and ask if I am still coming and that if I didn’t make it to come see him it’s okay because it is freezing outside so I should stay home and then he said he loves me and goodbye and I been replaying that message all the time now im gonna plan to get a tattoo of this so I can just replay forever whenever I want
At first I thought the app was actually reproducing the sound from the image of the tattoo on the skin. That would really be cool, but the level of small detail needed would probably not be possible with a tattoo. It is obvious that the app just recognizes the original waveform image from the tattoo and plays the original sound file along with it.
Okaayyy.. this is for anyone thinking about gettin these type of tattoos. Not saying don’t do it, but tattoo blur and bleed over time. The line will be thicker and it will not look like the original picture anymore. This is fine for regular tattoos, but if your goal is to be able to play recording, then I suggest rethinking it. The audiophile will sound different as yrs go on and it will not even be the same (it might change so drastically that you will have a hard time hearing the original recording).
Since it’s not actually reading the waveform off the skin but rather using the shape of the ink as a unique ID to recall a prerecorded audio file from the apps online database and play it over the phone, I wonder what would happen if I got ink that said “Welcome to Chili’s” in my voice and then you got the same ink. The app can see a difference in the waveform ink and so your tattoo reading would be in my voice because I got it first. I am guessing the combination of word utterances are nearly limitless so there is a relatively low chance of two people wanting the same phrase. If the resolution of the tattoo is high enough you can have software actually read the ink itself. That would be perfect.
Honestly what sucks about this is that you have to purchase a special app to put your audio on to, and if the company goes out of business or you forget to pay your subscription. your audio is lost to the ether, this would be great if it had more apps or more stable ways of playing the audio. I don’t mean to bash anyone with these tattoos but there needs to be more apps then just skin motion
i don’t think it actually reads the soundwave from the skin, the ink just makes a solid figure in the shape of the wave, there is no interior of the waveform, so that is impossible… i think it just stores a database of sounds and when you show the camera on it, it recognizes the shape compared to what’s in the database and plays back the sound
I want the tattoo of my cat meowing cause she has been the best thing that has happened to me all my life. I’ve taken her when I was 7yo and I’m 18 now, we literally grew up together. She’s always with me, she’s cute with everyone and she’s such a chatty cat. I love her with all my heart and when I’ll have the lose her it would be the hardest thing ever..
Great idea, that tattooist is market genius, feelings always sell a lot! …sadly I smell that it’s just the app calling the audio file (you’ve provided) from their server or from any cloud when its camera recognizes an associated shape. That shape could be even someone’s face or a graffiti, the soundwave shape is just a good idea to sell superfast not painful tattoos (so everyone can make it) at a higher price.