Buttkicker not working well with Falcon BMS
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Greetings all. I’ve just got my old Buttkicker fixed and got it to work again. I’ve seen numerous posts stating they broken down easily and so was mine, just that mine is not due to that 150k Om resistor, but the power module and amplifier chip.
Now, I’ve tried it with both Aerofly FS 4 and Falcon BMS. It kinds of not doing what it supposed to do in BMS, either the volume or the sound sample does not produce enough bass signal to activate the vibration.
In Aerofly FS it’s very good on props and jets. Vibration varies corresponding to the throttle position and you even get shakes on flaps and gear. It’s simply based on the sound output but the final sound clip gives it a kick which is well enough for the general public to enjoy the feeling. For helicopters it was not so good. You do have vibrations but not realistic to how a real helicopter shakes, not to mention transition lift and hover that was all off.
In BMS however, it doesn’t do much surprisingly. I’ve been searching in the forum as well for a possible explanation and so far it was just a debate of whether our cockpit is too quiet or not. I’ve not flown a F-16 before, but is it this quiet in the cockpit or it’s just that pilot wear earplug or helmet that they have very good insolation/seal that they do not hear much engine noise? David Clark has similar ear pads but I remember it was still loud even in a Cessna Turbo prop and helicopter are so loud that you can’t even talk to your copilot if not wearing headset, and for Airbus and Boeing it’s much better but still not as quiet as this F-16. F-15C should be way louder and I’ll give it a try next time.
I’ve played with the sound slider as well, you do have more vibration the more you move them to the right, but to a point that I can’t hear my gun firing if I set it too high, so I tuned it down. So far I’ve not find a proper solution yet. The external sound feels about right, but inside the cockpit it was so quiet, I also have to check the fuel flow to know whether I’m in afterburner because I can’t hear it either.
By the way I’m aware of Simshaker Wings, I’m just trying to see what vanilla BMS feels like without any sound mod or third party app.
I’m using Voicemeeter to share the sound output as an info, and both of them are using the same stereo output directly from the mother board. I may try to connect buttkicker directly to the bass output to see how that affects the situation.
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@jacqueslees Buttkicker without Simshaker is not good IMO. It just vibrates all sounds that come through the sound channel you plug it into. I would not use it without simshaker. In my opinion it sucks without Simshaker. Even bass channel is not selective.
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@jacqueslees I totally agree with @Icarus. I think the two of us are probably the some of the longest standing acoustic tactile feedback guys with bass pucks, bigger transducers, Buttkicker, JetSeat, heck, I even started with the Aura Interactor vest and cushion back in the the first year or so of Falcon 4.0. Yes, you can modify some of the volume sliders to get some of what you need but it will never come close to SimShaker Wings (tell Andre Snake122 and Icarus sent you, he’s a great guy!)
As a civilian flight instructor, I know what you mean about the different sound levels of cockpits. The F-16 is know as a quiet cockpit, especially with earplugs. So much so, it can make it hard for simmers with realistic sound settings to get all of the feedback that they would get by sensation, hence why we like using these devices as tactile feedback. There is too much bleed over into the the Buttkicker otherwise. The thing that actually most annoys me using without SimShaker is the radio comms shaking the ButtKicker, etc. Yes hooking to the subwoofer channel can help that part, but it never seems to be enough on it’s own.
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@Snake122 LOL. The comms. Its super creepy when your flight mates vibrate your ass when they talk.
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@Snake122 @Icarus Thx you for your advice. I’ve installed Simshaker wings immediately after seeing your post and I do have an issue here. Since I’m sharing the sound output to both my TV using HDMI and buttkicker, my TV is set to about 50% of volume but I was not able to separate the volume control for buttkicker in Voicemeeter, it was appearantly too loud with simshaker that the kicker overheated in 5 minutes. I’ll play with Voicemeeter mixer settings more to try to bring the volume down and try again. Strange that without Simshaker I can barely feel a thing but now it’s suddenly too much.
The one thing that’s shaking too much is the full spoiler, I felt like my seat is gonna be shaken apart and to a point I dare not to test landing anymore, even if I only set like 5% of gain for spoiler in Simshaker control. In Aerofly FS 4 it’s the G pulling, I’ll have to control the volume separately and I’ll report back soon.
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@jacqueslees You have no 3.5mm jack you could use exclusively for the Buttkicker? You don’t want it on your main sound channel now with SimShaker Wings.
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@Snake122 It was the normal stereo green output that I plugged in so it was an exclusive 3.55mm port, and my main screen was a big TV that got it’s video and sound signal from an HDMI cable connected directly to the graphic card, hence the need of Voicemeeter to output the signal to the stereo port, which otherwise would be suppressed by the priority of HDMI. When I was on the ground I did hear Ground bump noise introduced by Simshaker as well from my TV.
I also had checked the last time that I didn’t even have a DDS 5.0 system on my mother board, there is only Stereo output, line in and Mic. So I couldn’t get it on the Subwoofer channel. The more conventional way would be to get an HDMI sound separater and plug in a dual 3.55mm splitter, then one to line-in of my TV and another one to buttkicker, or just a purchase of new sound card that has Subwoofer chanel and see how it goes from there. Before that, I’ll play with Voicemeeter for now and see if I can get to where I want it
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@jacqueslees I have my main sound on my sound card since it is best sound quality and Buttkicker on my motherboard. You don’t want Buttkicker on same sound as main sound as Snake says, so the splitter thing is not good idea.
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@jacqueslees okay, split out the HDMI from the 3.5mm output. With SimShaker Wings you think of the tactile feedback channel going to the Buttkicker independent of normal sound going to the TV. That output is what you select in SimShaker Wings for its effects to be sent there, no more “normal” BMS sounds to it.
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@jacqueslees You can apply Mono and an EQ to your ButtKicker output channel to ensure only LFE is transmitted to the Amp – these are my settings, if it helps:
If you’ve not seen this already, it may help as well:
I refer to this graphic above whenever I switch to using the Amp for something other than gaming, and to re-set it back to proper gaming settings when I’m done.
You also want to ensure that clipping is not occuring; whenever I use my ButtKicker, I run a test (via a voice command) using the song Subsonic by Bass Mekanik one measure before one of the large bass drops. While this is playing, I adjust the volume of the Amp to ensure the red “Clip” led does not illuminate at all, and that the bass shaker on the chair does not produce obvious rattling or clattering sounds.
I would never fly BMS (or race in iRacing or Project Cars) without the SimShaker software, along with SimShaker Wings (or SimShaker Wheels). Typical LFE translation into bass shaker(s) is not ideal, and barely immersive compared to the predefined triggers for LFE effects by Andre’s SimShaker softwares.
edit: Don’t forget, VoiceMeeter also comes with a very nice Graphical EQ - you can find this application in the VoiceMeeter program folder along with other niche utility applications:
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@SemlerPDX he has SimShaker Wings now since the original though, your settings are to make the best of a Buttkicker without the software, correct? Currently his issue seems to be making sure he is outputing SimShaker Wings on an individual channel to his Buttkicker…
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@Snake122 These are my settings for use with SimShaker AND without - no need to send anything higher than LFE to the ButtKicker audio out channel, even if using SimShaker.
I connect my ButtKicker Amp via 3.5mm audio jack to one of my motherboard audio out ports on the back of the PC … using the default “green” line out:
If there are issues hooking into this audio out line, you might consider unchecking the box which allows applications to take exclusive control of this device, and then restart the Windows OS by using the “Restart” power option (read: not “Shutdown”)
Restarting the WinOS will ensure any applications or services which have taken exclusive control over this device will release them, starting fresh with a shared device upon restart.
Renaming these devices can really help identify them in software, and does not remove the actual designation of this device as seen by Windows (and users can still see what it is, too, as shown above my renamed “ButtKicker” device is actually the “Realtek(R) Audio” device)
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@SemlerPDX Thank you very much for the comprehensive reply. Upon careful study of your screenshots I found out my fondamental problem was the use of standard version of VoiceMeeter. I was thinking that in the standard version there are 2 gain sliders on the master output column and taken for granted that these should be the sliders for A1 and A2 but turned out that the right one is for B and that was the reason I couldn’t control A2 volume separately: there is no such control in the standard version of VoiceMeeter! Your EQ and Matrix control all looked different from mine and I went through VoiceMeeter manuals again to just make sure that you have to at least to use VoiceMeeter Banana version to be able to control A1 and A2 volume separately. I remember seeing this from other shakers post but just forgot about them. You are using the ultimate Patato version which has all the functions.
I then switched to the banana version and lowered A2 gain slider by just 10 and it’s already doing great. Spoiler doesn’t feel terrifying anymore and I have to tune some gain slider up in Simshaker wings to get a better rumble. What is happening now is that I can hear all the Simshaker introduced sound clipping from the main A1 output. I tried to select a dedicated sound card selection from Simshaker’s BMS setting but it failed all the time if I select the A2 output. I’ll do more fiddling with your recommendation to see what happens.
P.S the buttons on the Amp of the kicker, I set them according to the manual already, but I’m not sure which position of the button is « on ». I presume it was the pressed in state? I kept mine in the « in 40 in » setup, according to the game setup.
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@jacqueslees Like most all push-toggle switches on electronics, pushed-in is “ON” and pushed-out is “OFF”.
How is your ButtKicker Amp connected to your PC? What is the name of this device in the Playback options for Sound in Windows?
Can you share a screenshot of your VoiceMeeter and that A2 output, and perhaps the drop-down choice box in the SimShaker settings?
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@SemlerPDX My setup is a very easy one : A1 as the main sound output to a TV via HDMI directly from the graphic card, and A2 to buttkicker via green 3.55mm from the mother board. The name for A1 is Sumsung something and A2 is Speaker. When I try to select the A2 speaker one in Simshaker wings dedicated sound card drop down list everytime it restarts and said failure due to a code and leaving the dedicated sound card area blank again. I’ve seen this in other post as well and so far I’m guessing because I selected only one shaker, but A2 is stereo 2 channels perhaps it would work if I set A2 to mono in VoiceMeeter banana first. I’ll go check it up now. My simulator rig is a standalone PC that I only use it to fly, so I’m not sitting in front of it right now hence no screenshot for the moment, I’ll report back.
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It turns out that setting A2 to Mono doesn’t solve the problem. mmexport1704636777305.jpg
I’m having this error code from the console for changing the dedicated sound card from the drop down list. -
@jacqueslees Have you reached out to Andre yet? I’ve had more than one good contact with this developer of SimShaker when things didn’t work through email.
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@SemlerPDX
Ok I’ve sorted it out.
I’ve checked on the code 0x8889000A, turned out to be « Sound device occupied by other apps and unable to associate with the new one. » So I just unselected Speaker (my buttkicker from green 3.55mm) from A2 in VoiceMeeter and problem solved, I can now select speaker from the drop down list without any problem. Which make me wonder that I don’t even need VoiceMeeter if I only use buttkicker with Simshaker.But still, some strange behaviors. Dedicated 3.55mm green port selected in Simshaker now, everything quiet down, I don’t know where to adjust the volume now but the previously tuned down gain slider have to be reset to normal 50% again, to feel a normal strength shake. Even resetting A2 to speaker and using Voicemeeter output as source is not like the previous violent very loud shaking. I’ll have more testing to see why all this is happening.
Also after testing I think to have a bit of other sound bass blended in the shaker is not totally a bad thing though, it dampens a lot of harsh shake and less predictive if you only port simshaker to the buttkicker. I feel landing shake in BMS better with voicemeeter output than simshaker alone. I’m also wondering, if you port simshaker to buttkicker directly, wouldn’t all your EQ setting in Voicemeeter not used by buttkicker since the signal is no longer going through voicemeeter?
Another strange thing is that even with voicemeeter output going to simkicker in Aerofly FS4, with no dedicated device selected, I hear no clipping from the TV, but not so in falcon bms. Lots of clipping noise from the simkicker is going to the main output as well. Only after selecting dedicated device can it not blend in into my main sound output.