Are Synthesized Sounds the Future of ASMR?

By ASMR Donk.

We all love the relaxing crackle of a crisp packet, or the crinkle of cling film stretched over a microphone – oh we must thank the ASMR gods for gifting us with the delightfully fuzzy tones of a plastic bag. But believe it or not, interest in these crinkly noises stretches further than just the ASMR community. From the fields of Physics to Computer Science, many very clever people have put their heads together to understand and model the sounds you play while you sleep.

This image shows one second of crinkly plastic audio.

Although plastic wrapping might feel soft and flexible like cloth, it’s actually a rigid material, which buckles rather than flexes when you crumple it. Looking at the image above, you can see how the sound is actually created by a series of individual ‘clicks’ – at a scale smaller than you can see with your eye, a noisy sheet of cellophane is actually buckling and snapping.

This all comes down to creases. You can imagine how easily a plastic bag develops creases, with ridges and valleys chaotically criss-crossing over each other.

When two creases cross over one another, they create a kind of stable structure. You can apply a force on in and it will not deform, but if you slowly increase the force, the creases will reach a tipping point where they will very quickly ‘snap’ into a new stable orientation, releasing their stored up energy – some of it in the form of sound!

The thicker the sheet of plastic, the louder these snapping sounds become, but the sparser they appear. So a thick crisp packet is louder than a thin sheet of cling film, but there are fewer snaps.

The physics of these materials is so well understood, that we can simulate it with computers! Not only can we simulate animations of crumpling materials, but we can synthesize the sounds they produce. This has applications in 3D animation and sound design, and I’m sure everyone in the fields of Computer Science and animation are very excited. But I’m still waiting for the application of this technology in ASMR.

You can listen to some of these synthesized crinkles below...