xoxos has announced the release of Friction - a physical modeling synthesizer designed to be applicable to a range of emulative tasks, and is suitable for budget foley production or experimental music.

The architecture applies a friction algorithm to a 2nd order mass-spring, modeling the reactivity of surfaces in contact. Two waveguides are used to model the primary resonances of a physical object. The synthesis engine employs 4x oversampling, providing reasonable emulations of sounds produced by friction, such as squealing tires, squeaky hinges and wiping noises.

Modulation consists of three 32-stage envelopes (designed by Chris Kerry,) 4 configurable LFOs and an x-y pad. A group of sends allows modulators and controllers to be assigned to multiple destinations, similar to those used on xoxos' other physical models such as Fauna and Oscine Tract.

Available for Windows as a VST instrument plug-in, Friction is priced at $15, or $10 for current license holders. All licenses include extra items. A demo version is available which removes some parameters.