Heh. I was wondering if you would comment.
Believe me, Rod, in my fav sim - R3E - I'm getting tons of awesome feedback and even still get the occasional piston pang. I set the threshold for bumps pretty high and have Road Surface set a 1 so it gets most of the bumps. That's the general config I implement across the board though most of my time is being spent between iRacing and R3E.
In regards to stereo effect: As you know, I tried to implement isolation up front and it didn't work out. I tried bumping up the threshold as you suggested and, yes, I could feel some separation but for me, personally, I wasn't finding it adding to my immersion. I believe I've mentioned in the past that when I'm driving, I am extremely focused and tend not to notice tactile feedback all that much. Of course I do notice its absence if it isn't on but not to the point I find it distracting. Therefore, I'm not that hung up on stereo feedback. I prefer to focus on the fidelity of the feedback.
Its your rig so you can have it whatever way you want, really is down to you but sorry it seems very odd way to implement and use the units you have. Making a single unit have the requirement of spreading an effect over the
whole rig, then another unit to do
the same with a different effect.
You say adding the stereo didnt work out but I can't remember what you done or if you showed how exactly you set about trying to fix or implement the stereo into the build. If it didnt work out then gees man come on, use that LFE properly for what
it is good at with it operating in conjunction with boosting
several effects.
It appears you have an LFE with much more energy and it also using an effect like "Surface" with a very low threshold setting. This very likely in various sims
will have much greater activity too than some other effects, but your using one single unit and the biggest unit to represent one of the busiest effects, effects that should not be the strongest sensations neither. This is possibly likely why you get some piston pang from it too. My advice if sticking with this is to increase the threshold to reduce the "activity" response of this very active effect.
Not only that but as such for an "effect" role that is not necessarily in my view best represented by the most powerful unit and the way, you seem to be giving your units individual roles for single effects is peculiar.
What you have is the higher impact/more forceful "Bumps" for the wheels/suspension, being represented by the smaller unit and then limiting this again to just one of the ADX units. From effects testing/monitoring, to me this is the effect that is best used for the punchier feedback. It highlights over the "Surface" effect the directional/independent wheels but I only say what I see in its activity friend.
If anything you could try the opposite and have both ADX doing the work of the "Surface" effect, they should have better detailing than the LFE and two of them with this mono effect should be better than one. Then place "Bumps" to these too but also using the LFE for Bump enhancement (not surface). Likewise in Audacity having other effects be backed up by the LFE, Lat G-Force and Braking. Use its power to fill the whole rig with effects that should have strong power. It should improve the sensation you have over how you currently are using it. In a sense having the LFE do what its good at, in acting like a Subwoofer role.
Your choice of course but if you want, try the following finding the amplitude that suits:
- Surface on both ADX & (TST also) if you want, thats 3 units for Surface effects distribution.
- Bumps on both ADX but give these more impact with LFE enhancement
- Experiment with having LFE boost other effects but not relying on one single unit to distrubute an effect over the whole rig.
Tactile units can handle "audio tactile" easily, this has *Multiple frequencies, with many harmonics happening at once, therefore they do not struggle in coping with producing many frequencies at any given time.
Yet for effects, yes we should want them to use different waveforms or tone generation as to give them their own unique character or sensations. Then apply frequencies or waveforms that suit not only the role but also the general activity and the users pref/pecking order of the effects being used.
The problem is when seeking a unit to operate many effects all with different activity, often at the same times too. Then if they use similar Hz, it then makes sense these effects blend their sensations and miss providing individual detailing/operation. What happens is the Hz that is repeatedly used, when multiple effects are in operation with the same Hz it boosts the dB of these frequencies, as such its also then possible for units already being driven hard to possibly lose their composure.
In this type of scenario, often dropping an effect from the unit's activity of "Overused Hz" is the..... "less is more" feedback/advice that you see people often give.
- A question I need help with is knowing what sims use the "mono" based effect numbers. It would be good if someone can check the log for the "mono bump and mono surface" effect activity. Or possibly do a test in giving these effect numbers high amplitude and then the left/right variants very little amplitude to easily detect when each is operating. AC does not seem to use these "mono effect numbers" I am curious which sims perhaps do or how active they can be?