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  • Dare 2025-08 - Friction (part 1)

Dare 2025-08 - Friction (part 1)

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Started May 11th, 2025 · 6 replies · Latest reply by AlienXXX 2 months, 3 weeks ago

AlienXXX

2,111 sounds

2,390 posts

3 months, 1 week ago
#1

This dare is about the sounds of 'friction'. Friction happens whenever two objects rub together, in most cases, this produces sound.
When I was thinking about this dare, I decided I would have to split it into various parts because there is so much sound variation and possibilities.

Friction can produce very loud sounds (tires on a road, or dragging a table) and very gentle sounds (like when you rub your fingers together). It can produce pitched sounds (violins, the 'squeaky clean' sound on plates), noise or anything in between.

When you make sound by hitting an object with another object, usually one of the objects is the resonator and the other the 'hammer'. And usually this means that the properties of the hammer don't matter too much, except for the hardness of the material and how hard it hits.

With friction, both materials matter and a lot of other things too. Not only the material is important, but the surface too (smooth, rugged, grooves, how clean it is and type of 'dirt' present). The direction, speed and force applied to the motion matter. And, of course, if any of the objects (or both) is able to resonate.

So I decided to split the dare in various parts. We will start by experimenting with different materials to produce sound and then, hopefully, also get into processing/sound design and using some of the sounds in a musical context.

So, here we go....

DARE 2025-08 - Friction (part 1) fabrics
RULES:
- We are looking for unprocessed (i.e., natural) recordings. Processing is not allowed.
- Record sounds created by friction between 2 objects where at least one of the objects is a fabric (i.e., some kind of woven material).
- Please tag your uploads with "Dare2025-08".
- In the description include as much detail as possible about the material (e.g., "beach towel") and what objects you used to rub against it (e.g. "fingers", nails", "polished stone", "rough stone", "itself"). Remember that the type of surface is important so you may want to describe surfaces (consider words such as soft, hard, polished, dry, wet, rugged, grooved, etc).
- You may want to do more than one take with the same object in the same recording, and variate a parameter. Explain this in the description, for example "rubbing a round polished on a beach towel placed flat on a table. Slow rubs with pressure increasing from very soft to hard."
- ANYTHING NOT SPECIFICALLY FORBIDDEN BY THE RULES IS ALLOWED.
- ANYTHING NOT SPECIFICALLY REQUIRED BY THE RULES IS NOT MANDATORY.

DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS: OPEN DARE = NO DEADLINE

I want to believe.
Sadiquecat

3,274 sounds

389 posts

3 months, 1 week ago
#2

Given how many sounds are due to Friction, I'm surprised that to this day, only 1,173 sounds are tagged with "Friction", and 699 with "Rubbing" making it 0.3% of recording here on Freesound.
There's also only 1100 sounds tagged with "Fabric".
Of course it's probably a tagging oversight. And many more sounds untagged are due to friction.
But I encourage users to add "Fabric" "Friction" "Rubbing" (if applicable) in addition to the DARE 2025-08.
Any other relevant tags we should keep in mind ?

Cheers!

CC0 Be a hero.
Sadiquecat

3,274 sounds

389 posts

3 months ago
#3

Here's my first contribution smile

Cleaning the couch by removing the cat fur using a cat brush https://freesound.org/people/Sadiquecat/sounds/807200/

CC0 Be a hero.
Sadiquecat

3,274 sounds

389 posts

2 months, 3 weeks ago
#4

Late contribution but hey no closing message yet so I'ma sneek this one in smile
https://freesound.org/people/Sadiquecat/sounds/808485/
Sponge fabric green cleaning side cleaning a fork.

CC0 Be a hero.
AlienXXX

2,111 sounds

2,390 posts

2 months, 3 weeks ago
#5

Hello Sadiquecat

I am also late posting in my contributions. - blame a busy life.
Also, it is not like we are being flooded with entries and I need to rush to close the dare (sadly).

Although not seeing much interest at the moment, I am going to change the dare to an open dare (no close date), with the purpose that we may get some entries in the future, if at any time interest picks up.

Also, I will be creating some exercises / tutorials, which should continue to be useful for sound design independently of the dare timelines or purpose.

The idea with these dares is to get people thinking about mundane sound sources as raw material for sound design - which anyone can record and manipulate.

In the meantime, I will post the next dare, which is still about friction...

I want to believe.
AlienXXX

2,111 sounds

2,390 posts

2 months, 3 weeks ago
#6

Ok... So, I am slowly uploading my contributions.

Some sounds created with a soft matt.
https://freesound.org/people/AlienXXX/sounds/808601/
https://freesound.org/people/AlienXXX/sounds/808594/

Fingernail scrape on a bed mattress
https://freesound.org/people/AlienXXX/sounds/808593/
Sounds pretty harsh. Also, created some unintended resonance on the recorder case itself (as it was placed on top of the mattress).

I want to believe.
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