Tactile Immersion - General Discussion - Hardware & Software

[Tom_Hampton]

Getting the exact same combo. Did you need dedicated sound card? Also, I was thinking of installing the exciters on the inside wall of my NRG seat. Is that a viable option? I see in most photos that most people stuck then to the outside of the seat.

Need? No. I was using my motherboard audio. But, I got the card so that I could just dedicate the entire card to tactile.

Someone on here put them inside a pillow type thing that wrapped around their hips, I think. I'd be concerned they would get hot after a long use.

 

[turen009]

Need? No. I was using my motherboard audio. But, I got the card so that I could just dedicate the entire card to tactile.

Someone on here put them inside a pillow type thing that wrapped around their hips, I think. I'd be concerned they would get hot after a long use.

Gotcha. Post a pic of your setup if possible. Also, which card did you get?

 

[Tom_Hampton]

Gotcha. Post a pic of your setup if possible. Also, which card did you get?

I got an internal audigy rx 7.1. If I had to do it again, I'd probably get a usb device though...just to simplify cabling issues.

Pics will come... Mine is all just protype stuff right now....as I figure out what I like and how far I want to take it.

 

[Andrew Sebastian]

As recommended by a few folk on this thread, Douk Audio M4 arrived today with speaker cable, 3M pads, terminal blocks, RCA cables etc. Amazon messed up my delivery of the Dayton TT-25’s, one arrived instead of 4!

Anyway, I’ve got all wires prepared for the arrival of the other three. Had a brief test of one TT-25 on Sim Hub and it’s amazing how powerful just one is!

Looking forward to the other three arriving and getting it all set up.

 

[turen009]

As recommended by a few folk on this thread, Douk Audio M4 arrived today with speaker cable, 3M pads, terminal blocks, RCA cables etc. Amazon messed up my delivery of the Dayton TT-25’s, one arrived instead of 4!

Anyway, I’ve got all wires prepared for the arrival of the other three. Had a brief test of one TT-25 on Sim Hub and it’s amazing how powerful just one is!

Looking forward to the other three arriving and getting it all set up.

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care to share the links for the cables, terminal blocks and the 3M pads? Especially interested if they are dual-lock ones

 

[Mr Latte]

Getting the exact same combo. Did you need dedicated sound card? Also, I was thinking of installing the exciters on the inside wall of my NRG seat. Is that a viable option? I see in most photos that most people stuck then to the outside of the seat.

I'm not so sure it suits having pressure put onto these exciters as they rely on using a suspension element.

From what I see, while it may not be a concern for some people I think the main thing that could be improved is how we tidy the cabling, especially if someone has a nice seat they do not perhaps want a lot of cabling stuck to the back of it.

So it would be best to use a seat you can get access to the inside and have small drill holes in the seat with rubber grommets. Then route the cables to the inside of the seat and these exit at the bottom. Some users have already done this and looks much more professional.

One approach is to use something as an upright at the back of the seat to channel the cables into but well I suppose it just needs some thought and creativity.

This does not mean you can't experiment with placing exciters underneath or at the sides of the seat in places that would not bring many issues or challenges with untidy cabling.

Spoiler: Do You Want To Know More?

Dayton Puc
This has been used in cushion/seat pads as it might be more suitable for that type of application. Although as a device, from my own testing, it offered less detailing and a bit less performance than the recommended Thruster exciter. This is particularly evident in effects for finer detailing and higher frequencies.

Some people exclude these lighter feeling frequencies as being of much importance as they won't carry much bass/depth (on their own) but when effect layers are created to include felt harmonics when applied within our effects and these now paired with low-mid frequencies. Then it's natural or what we could call a more musical approach. Certainly, with my own experimenting, an important aspect of achieving improved tactile immersion is this type of approach we can adopt for making better effects.

No single transducer or exciter on the market offers the best "low bass" and the best "higher frequency detailing". Even taking into account models from £20-£700 products that I have purchased and tested.

Transducer units that do not produce much-felt vibration or detail over the 80Hz/100Hz range (which is many) will not bring this finer detailing with harmonics. If as a community we seek the best of what tactile as immersion can bring. Then we really do want to achieve 1-200Hz range to give us much more scope in effects creation. Such can be applied in many effects to richen the feel and help give them more variation to their feel.

A vast amount of people have tactile that only works well in the 30-80Hz range at best and this (50Hz scale) is a major restriction in how you can achieve different types of effects to have their own felt character to others. My experimental approach being shared in combining exciters with larger BK units gives us 4x that scale with the full 1-200Hz bass range.

The Dayton Puc, has been a very popular budget transducer choice for people. It's quite compact in height and was being used in sim rigs long before I helped share any findings in using the exciters in a multi-channel based installation.

It does perform quite well for the money but like most budget transducers its performance range is limited.

My Own Effects Approach
Consider this, what's the point of a user trying effects created to work within 1Hz-200Hz when at best what they may feel from them is @20-80Hz. They will only feel a small part of the desired sensation that the combination of effect layers and desired feel in the creation of the effect was developed to offer.

They wont feel the intended sensation or experience it is meant to deliver. So this is one reason it is pointless for me sharing certain effects I have been working on and these developed with the concept of utilising the full 1Hz-200Hz in mind.

It however also highlights how the vast majority of people with tactile are only getting to partially experience what it can deliver. Things have moved on in what is now possible with effects creation, Im keen to see how far it can be taken?

 

[Andrew Sebastian]

care to share the links for the cables, terminal blocks and the 3M pads? Especially interested if they are dual-lock ones

I got the speaker cable and terminal blocks from Screwfix, super cheap:

The 3M pads are from Amazon, not genuine but appear very strong, cheap and you get lots:

 

[EsxPaul]

I routed my wiring on the outside of the seat due to mistakenly selecting speaker cabling that was stiffer than I had expected. Not exactly what I had envisioned when I first set out but kept it as tidy as I could.

 

[Mr Latte]

Something new is coming in area of "multichannel audio interface" hardware.
Looks nice, here's an overview to its features. Its not fully-fledged but could be a nice bit of hardware over some external EQ/CROSSOVER and DSP options we have shared here in the past.

Link

 

[Andrew Sebastian]

I routed my wiring on the outside of the seat due to mistakenly selecting speaker cabling that was stiffer than I had expected. Not exactly what I had envisioned when I first set out but kept it as tidy as I could.

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Very neat and tidy.

I have an OMP TRS-E seat, and luckily I can get the pucks up behind the cover and mount them directly to the seat. I’ve got some cable webbing and threaded all the individual wires through to keep it tidy.

Quick question, I have 4 pucks to mount, but not decided on where best to put them. I was thinking two either side of my shoulders, and another two underneath the seat, in the centre, left and right?

 

[EsxPaul]

Quick question, I have 4 pucks to mount, but not decided on where best to put them. I was thinking two either side of my shoulders, and another two underneath the seat, in the centre, left and right?

I played around with different mounting positions and found that the best placement for me was at the 4 points where my body pressed against the seat with the most force. That ended up being shoulder blades and just above/behind the knees.

If you don't mind sacrificing a few of those 3M pads, you could place them in various spots that you think will work, leave some extra length on the cabling and transfer an exciter across the various pads to see what gives you the most satisfying feedback.

 

[Mr Latte]

That would make sense but I would also recommend you try and compare the recommended exciter before committing to possibly buying more of the Pucs.

Effects like RPM as they generate harmonics can lose out quite a bit in the potential detailing and zing we can feel that the Pucs just won't manage to produce.

At one point in testing last year I had 4x models of units on the back of my seat to compare which let me determine what the benefits or limitations of certain models was. Of course you can decide to use what you want and how you want.

6-8 units on the seat gives us an optimal experience in how we can position effects and send them to certain units or multiple units for either specific positioning or wider dispersion. Much of this is user preference dependent too.

You start then trying things you could not do before, like having a higher volume going to only 2 units or to output a lower volume but to 4 or 6 units. It changes the felt sensation/perception of the effect.

Its not possible to achieve these immersion benefits or level of control with a typical installation that commonly used 2 units attached under a seat or to a seats mounts.

 

[Mr Latte]

Think Beyond The Norm

Bumps Example:
A typical install will maybe have 2 units installed and small to large bumps go to these but the only main variation is that smaller bumps have less volume and larger bumps increase the volume. Some people may have different layers for small and large bumps with a variation in the Hz each offers but doing this with multiple layers, soon gives a unit a lot of responses to try and manage to output. Its easy to overwhelm a unit and often better to keep the effect more simple for better clarity.

Mr Latte Method
(Example Just For Exciters)

Small Bumps
An example of a 6-8 unit install could have "small bumps" using their own layers and frequencies as well as sensitivity settings. These could be set to operate over only 2 units. Lets try shoulders (higher Hz effects higher up seat method). Some people in testing have liked this approach.

Medium Bumps
These could be placed to mid-back or side regions. Again we differ the sensitivity, use frequencies with a bit more depth and offer a bit more gain to give the felt impression of a stronger sensation.

Large Bumps
How do we make these feel more intense?
Without applying say a Buttkicker to bring the added punch we extend the presence and dispersion of these compared to the small and medium responses. So now we apply the best punch frequencies these units will give to the large effect layers. We also alter the sensitivity and gain so that these layers only operate with the larger telemetry values from bumps.

The exception this time is we can apply large bumps to units underneath the seat the lower back and sides. So we not only get a stronger output but also over more body regions. It takes some playing around with settings but once a user grasps this type of approach you can get an idea of how it brings much more control and design into the creation of the effect to bring much greater range in the felt immersion and also variation of something so simple as small/medium/large bumps versus the traditional approach.

It also gives the user the potential to bring much greater stereo representation with some people having 4 units per side on the seat.

I am still considering doing Skill Share classes in the future that would cover all these aspects and share my own research and effects development or experience in forming improved effect layers. Video form would be best and easier for others to follow but it is still just an idea.

 

[turen009]

Think Beyond The Norm

Bumps Example:
A typical install will maybe have 2 units installed and small to large bumps go to these but the only main variation is that smaller bumps have less volume and larger bumps increase the volume. Some people may have different layers for small and large bumps with a variation in the Hz each offers but doing this with multiple layers, soon gives a unit a lot of responses to try and manage to output. Its easy to overwhelm a unit and often better to keep the effect more simple for better clarity.

Mr Latte Method
(Example Just For Exciters)

Small Bumps
An example of a 6-8 unit install could have "small bumps" using their own layers and frequencies as well as sensitivity settings. These could be set to operate over only 2 units. Lets try shoulders (higher Hz effects higher up seat method). Some people in testing have liked this approach.

Medium Bumps
These could be placed to mid-back or side regions. Again we differ the sensitivity, use frequencies with a bit more depth and offer a bit more gain to give the felt impression of a stronger sensation.

Large Bumps
How do we make these feel more intense?
Without applying say a Buttkicker to bring the added punch we extend the presence and dispersion of these compared to the small and medium responses. So now we apply the best punch frequencies these units will give to the large effect layers. We also alter the sensitivity and gain so that these layers only operate with the larger telemetry values from bumps.

The exception this time is we can apply large bumps to units underneath the seat the lower back and sides. So we not only get a stronger output but also over more body regions. It takes some playing around with settings but once a user grasps this type of approach you can get an idea of how it brings much more control and design into the creation of the effect to bring much greater range in the felt immersion and also variation of something so simple as small/medium/large bumps versus the traditional approach.

It also gives the user the potential to bring much greater stereo representation with some people having 4 units per side on the seat.

I am still considering doing Skill Share classes in the future that would cover all these aspects and share my own research and effects development or experience in forming improved effect layers. Video form would be best and easier for others to follow but it is still just an idea.

I am definitely going to experiment with the exciters and will try different positions on my NRG seat. Ordered 7 of the exciters, plus the Douk amps. Which external 7.1 soundcard do you recommend?

This page is a goldmine, I am already considering some upgrades (after I experiment with the exciters) to NX3000 and largers BKs. And yes, skill share classes (video is best, yes I agree) will be great and with endless possibilities and queries that I have seen in this thread, I am sure noobs like to to pros will benefit from them a lot.

 

[Ruttman98]

So, last night I spent some time experimenting with the exciters and the Douk M4 amp.

If I turn all the simhub channel and main gains up to 100, then I have to turn the Amp volume knobs down to about 30% or so to avoid getting chatter/clacking between the exciter body and my seat surfaces. This is all using the channel "test" option within Simhub. Does that seem about right? I was a bit surprised by that since the Amp is rated at 50w per channel, and the exciters are rated at 40w. So, I was expecting to be around 75% to be driving max rated watts into the exciter.

Maybe its because my mounting locations are so rigid? My seat is an aluminum racing seat, and the locations where they are mounted are very stiff. I have an alternative Sparco seat that I think I'm going to give a try. Maybe with a less rigid surface the exciter will be less prone to impacting the seat, as more energy goes into the seat material and not into energy storage of the spring. AS it is, I don't get a lot of low-frequency vibration transmitted into the seat. 3khz audio works fantastic though.

Also, I think I've got one exciter that I've damaged....it rattles, and you can see that it's not vibrating on axis. It seems to tilt slightly away from the connectors. I probably damaged the spring at some point pulling it off and moving it around. Bummer....but, they're cheap.

Finally....I just have to say, the G-force effect works fantastic for driver feedback. I dropped nearly 2s within 2 laps of turning it on. it worked much better than wheel slip as a single simple effect specifically to driver control feedback. Most of the improvement came from braking. Having intensity and tone related to deceleration made it much easier to be consistent, and also really allowed for modulating brake release and trailing much deeper into the corner---more similar to how I drive on a real track.

Thank you for posting your experience with a formed aluminum seat. I have alternated between Kirkey and Ultrashield options and fiberglass seats, with the former holding favor because of ease of removing covers. Definitely a lot to consider and I will be following with interest!

 

[Tom_Hampton]

Thank you for posting your experience with a formed aluminum seat. I have alternated between Kirkey and Ultrashield options and fiberglass seats, with the former holding favor because of ease of removing covers. Definitely a lot to consider and I will be following with interest!

I currently have a Ultrashield Spec Miata Seat installed.

Spec Miata Seat

www.ultrashieldrace.com

My alternate is a Sparco Circuit Pro ADV:

CIRCUIT

The Circuit LF is an ultra-light competition seat specifically designed for circuit use. Made from aramadic fibers-reinforced fiberglass, the Circuit has an ultra-light shell. The Circuit LF includes integrated bolsters to protect the head and a uni...

www.sparcousa.com

Mounting brackets should arrive from Amazon today.

 

[hvb83]

Really appreciate what you guys are trying to get going here! I've browsed the tactile immersion topics over the past week, but there seems to be quite some conflicting/outdated information and I want to make sure I get it right. I would like to stick to the approach you guys have chosen as closely as possible, so that we can share profiles and test side-by-side.

I have 3 LFEs coming my way which I just couldn't resist for the asking price, and I still have like 5 mini LFEs laying around from my previous Simvibe trials 5 years ago. As I understand the current concensus is that I'll also need some Dayton exciters also. As for amps I was almost certain I would be using NX3000Ds. However, it seems some new developments are arising with the X32.

So enough options to choose from, but it's not completely clear to me what the advised route at this moment is. Is there a threat that summarizes the current concensus, explaining the need to haves, the nice to haves and a stepstone path between a basic setup and the ultimate Mr Latte setup?

 

[blekenbleu]

I was thinking of installing the exciters on the inside wall of my NRG seat. Is that a viable option?

That is approximately the SRS ShakeKit solution

.. no longer available, but DIY PuckSeat IMO is not too hard...

 

[Ruttman98]

I routed my wiring on the outside of the seat due to mistakenly selecting speaker cabling that was stiffer than I had expected. Not exactly what I had envisioned when I first set out but kept it as tidy as I could.

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Tidy and elegant! The bulkhead cable install on the seat bracket is brilliant.

I am planning a similar install with four exciters and a Mini LFE beneath the seat with another Mini LFE under the pedal plate.

Could you please share which cable (gauge & brand--I especially like the multiple wire colors) you chose for the Douk-Neutrik Speakon 8 pole connectors?

 

[Ruttman98]

I have been studying Mr. Latte's excellent cables and connectors guide:

Audio Cables & Connectors Guide

Confused with all the different types of inputs/outputs, connections, cables, speaker gauges and head spinning factors? Here is a short guide for when it comes to simply connecting your PC to amplifiers for tactile transducers including Buttkicker models. Common Factors Connection & Cable...

www.racedepartment.com

I am still a bit mystified. I have two Buttkicker Mini LFEs to be driven by a 300W amp and four Dayton DAEX32EP-4 exciters (I will be adding the Douk M4 shortly).

I understand that my MSI X570-A Pro motherboard has 7.1 "3D" sound capability thanks to Nahimic Audio Boost 4. I believe I need the following cables for six distinct channels to to be outputted from the PC:

1) 3.5 jack to XLR - 300W amp L (front Mini LFE)
2) 3.5 jack to XLR - 300W amp R (rear Mini LFE)
3) 3.5 jack to RCA - Douk M4 1 (exciter 1)
4) 3.5 jack to RCA - Douk M4 2 (exciter 2)
5) 3.5 jack to RCA - Douk M4 2 (exciter 3)
6) 3.5 jack to RCA - Douk M4 2 (exciter 4)

On the amp output side, I am exploring connecting my two Buttkicker Mini LFEs to the amplifier: could I connect a male 2-pole Speak-on to the stub ends on each of the Minis and run a pair of speaker wires with female and male Speak-on ends to connect at the amp outputs?

To connect the four Dayton DAEX32EP-4 exciters to the individual cable leads, I can solder (but don't relish the task!) I am being swayed that quality crimped connections are also more than satisfactory and would ease replacement in the event of exciter failure. Does anyone have suggestions for spade or other connectors?

Thanks to all who innovate and contribute!
Chris