Build Report: Tactile Immersion in Motion

I'd just built what seemed to me the perfect immersive racing platform. What had started off as a modest attempt to dust off an old hobby had turned into something of an obsession -- messy, mismatched, and ridiculously inadequate at first, but now finally coming together.

After years of disuse, I'd pulled an old Thrustmaster wheelstand, wheel base, and pedal set out of the basement, plopped it down in front of a large screen television, sat myself in a comfy chair and gone racing.

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I'd had an on-again-off-again interest in SIM racing since the early nineties, culminating in the release of GP Legends, which I'd played with a wheel bolted to my computer desk. That's about as far as I'd gotten in terms of hardware. But even I could recognize that this whole setup left a lot to be desired. It was of course annoying to have the stand slide out from under my feet under even light braking, to have only minimum feedback from the wheel and no resistance from the pedals, and to endure the 60Hz television refresh rate. I was having fun, but wanted more. So I started out on a project that I thought had reached its pinnacle before this thread even starts.

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Over the course of the next four of five months, I took a jagged path through a stand just rigid enough to support a direct drive wheel, a better chair that still had to be strapped to the stand once I added a hydraulic brake pedal, eventually forcing a decision to build an 80/20 cockpit, install a proper racing seat, add a motion platform, belt myself in, and put on a VR headset. It was everything I had imagined it could possibly be and was responding beautifully to my efforts to dial it in.

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Then, on a whim, I decided to try out one of those Buttkicker Gamer2 packages. I honestly thought it was a gimmick and didn't expect it to add much to the immersive experience. Even so, despite my already low expectations, I found it singularly unimpressive. Almost every other step I'd taken in this process had not only shown promise, but delivered a substantially improved experience. This thing just did nothing for me at all. I sent it back almost immediately.

Still, the idea of adding tactile stimuli made sense to me. Although that specific product in that particular configuration on my individual platform had not delivered, I couldn't stop turning over in my head that it could be done right and in a way that wouldn't just add a bit of rumbling noise, but would complement the immersive experience of motion and VR. I soon discovered the exhaustive tactile immersion tread and began a correspondence with @Mr Latte that has transformed my thinking about what it should be possible to achieve. Without his guidance, I'm sure I would have given up on this idea.

This thread will chronicle my efforts integrating tactile stimuli on my platform. It may take me a while to cover everything, but here's the plan: After describing my starting point and some of its idiosyncrasies, I'll outline my objectives, general philosophy, specific hardware choices, challenges I've faced and solutions discovered for isolating the 80/20 frame and motion platform while conducting stimuli to the body, explore a few dead ends that haven't worked for me but may be instructive for others, and finally look at software configuration and tuning, which I've only just begun to explore.

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I've been working through configuring effects in Sim-Hub, balancing and adjusting layers, distributing these over different devices depending on their frequency and where I want them delivered. Most of this I've done following examples established principles established by Mr Latte. Along the way, I decided I need more of the impressive Dayton Audio DAEX32EP-4 exciters, another amp to drive them, and another truckload of cables and connectors. I also added an audio interface to give me better visibility and control of the signals going to each unit and then revisited all of the initial work I'd done to set crossovers and equalization based on what I could now see and feel. So I thought it would be a good point to take a step back, provide an update on the current hardware configuration, and share some of what I'm now able to capture with the audio interface. I don't expect many people will want to invest something like the RME UFX or in the DAW control and visualization tools I'll share here, but I do believe many will find it interesting to see and some may be able to gain insights they could apply to how they configure their own systems in Sim-Hub and with other tools.

Let's start with the transducer/exciter units and how they are now distributed on the seat. I wanted this to deliver at least the following effects:
  • Engine RPM
  • Vehicle Speed
  • Gear Shift
  • Road Vibrations
  • Road Impacts
  • Wheel Spin
I'd wanted to deliver some of these as mono effects, but distributed over multiple units to take advantage of the strengths of each and to avoid overloading any of them. Others I'd wanted to deliver as stereo effects and/or with front/rear separation, but still playing to the most effective frequency ranges of each and of course avoiding overload. I also discovered as I was working through the layered effects one by one that there was something to be gained by having some effects move up from below the seat to the shoulders (or the other way around. As I tried to make this all work, I quickly came to the conclusion that I needed more than 8 channels and, specifically, that I needed at least 4 more exciters. At first I thought I might get away with running them in series with the ones I already had, avoid purchasing another amp, and a lot of hassle with additional cables. But I also realized that this would just perpetuate some of the constraints I wanted to overcome, so I bit the bullet and added them as independent channels. At about the same time, I removed the two BK4 Advance transducers on the seat rails and replaced them with larger BK-LFE transducers. So now I have twelve channels with three BK-LFE transducers, one Clark Synthesis TST 329, and eight Dayton Audio DAEX32EP-4 exciters distributed as shown here:

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All of the Dayton exciters are running from the external USB sound card and the larger transducers are still running from the internal sound card. The RME UFX has twelve independent analogue inputs and outputs, so I run everything through that (controlled from the gaming PC via USB). At first, I still relied on the DSP in the Behringer NX3000D amplifiers driving the transducers and the Equalizer APO software controlling the external sound card to set the crossovers and equalization, but I've since turned all of that off and recalibrated everything using Ableton Live and FabFilter Pro-Q running on the host PCt. I'll share the results and details of how that all works in another post. For now, here is an update showing the current signal chain.
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Superb progress and nice collection of hardware...


This addition certainly will bring you advantages for control and also help to learn with effects creation.
To now see the audio via monitoring really helps to learn how audio/harmonics work and are generated.

During my own testing research, I have even done some effects layers with frequencies using rounded values for 1/3rd octaves like how a 33 band EQ operates. Trying effects with (center values) and 1/3 bands to use a (musical) approach for some effects operational layers.



With your monitoring, congrats and well done you are one of the few that has taken that step.
Now you can see how in building effects that may use additional layers on exciters or TST units. These can be configured as harmonically in sync with the naturally generated harmonics from the lowest frequency (fundamental frequency) used with BK units.

Its a great method to use in a dual unit combo but isnt necessarily what you may want for all effects as clearly having units, use less roles also brings advantages in the felt clarity. The beauty is we have several options to how we go about this and develop effects combinations. Quite addictive but also fascinating to discover what the preferred approaches are.

Will look forward to one day seeing how your own effects creation goes.

Channel & Layer Management Factor
Heres the problem, already you are at 12 channels for the seat and no tactile yet in pedals.
So it may become too much of a tore to try to manage each unit as an individual channel. You now have to contend with settings in Simhub and settings in a DAW. Yes I expect you can save presets that are tuned but for on the fly changes with different cars titles or indeed moods it then takes quite a bit of management to blend in new levels/settings.

Let me break this down better, while Simhub has no limitation for channels and soundcards. It becomes a real mess having to set effect layers controls for each unit. Also taking into account we may have multiple effects on a unit and some (advanced) effects themselves have multiple layers. So the number of layers to control quickly gets out of hand.

Maximising Exciters:
I recommend maintaining channel independence for the seat with the exciters for 6-8 units. As it's important to have the bodyzone control where we can place the various effects to our own preferences but also reduce the number of effects on a channel. Duplicating channels here limits your productivity or potential with effects and some have done this on the forums against the advice.
Your own deep study has reported of the ability to have effects move between channels or place the operation of effects to specific body regions with their own individual control. Duplicating channels for the exciters in the seat while an easy way to save money on amplification defeating the purpose of why/what we can do in the seat with the individual channel and body-region felt sensations. If people stick to the plan, then it makes it simple to share effects created to work in 6 or 8 channel modes on the seat and to also properly experience any effects that are used for transitions up/down the seat.

More & More
Over a full chassis build, well the numbers begin to rise as you want to have stereo based directional units and mono units for rpm/speed separated for best performance (like in the seat). So if you expanded that's easily another 4 channels (at least) to have to cope with all the effects settings with all their layers. This also becomes an issue with the audio-interface as having that nice control per channel that you now have gets really expensive when we want hardware to support more channels. I looked at hardware to offer 24-32 independent channels but honestly its too excessive and for the exciters I think the cheap DSP is more than enough to spend, keeping the primary interface/monitoring hardware for the larger units. If you expanded this is likely what you would do anyways with that quality interface you have then used for the pedal/seat primary units.

Best Workaround?
The solution I formed for this with my own build generally works in two ways. Keep the exciters working with the basic DSP, using up to 8 channels and via dual EQP304 as you already are doing. Have these configured to work well and not really need to touch them, other than adjust volumes on the fly.

My main chassis tactile (16 units) however will work in only an 8 channel configuration. This is 3x stereo combos and two mono channels. That allows good usage for Simhub applying different directional effects over pedals/seat base and keeps the two mono channels for the highly active rpm/speed sensations separated.

What it also does however is make a suitable installation for 7.1 audio to operate and this can then easily be mixed with the Simhub effects (per channel basis) or we can just enjoy (game audio-tactile) on its own (non Simhub titles) if desired. With the benefits of all the controls of the audio interface and pro audio plugins.

Also as highlighted if I only have 8 channels to manage for layers then thats 1/2 the workload needed in Simhub to finely tune settings for different cars/sims and on the fly. This is why I have not opted for an audio interface with more channels but was tempted to get the X32 Rack unit with an additional expansion to handle up to 32 channels and all controllable via PC/iPad etc via wifi.


Nice but a bit excessive even for me

Yet really, while I want a very high-end performance with multiple units being installed I also want the control usage of it to be highly controllable but importantly with minimal management. This needs a good deal of thought in not just how we build effects to work on the rig but also how we use the channels and the effects.

Of course, your own preferences and other people's approaches may differ.
I am just highlighting some of the factors I found as problems or potential issues with planning ahead.
 
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Here’s a slightly off-topic diversion. These improvements don’t relate directly to tactile integration, but I’m very pleased with them and thought they might be of general interest.

The first is just a bit of cable management — or, more accurately, cable concealment. The nest of cables below the panel of Speakon sockets below the seat was getting out of hand, unsightly, and dragging on the floor. So I decided to box them in with a thin (1/8”) aluminum panel below and a thicker (1/4”) floor above. It’s still a mess underneath, but I don’t have to look at it or worry about anything getting caught in the casters.

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For the moment, I’ve had my rig sitting next to a desk with all my amps and computer and keyboard and mouse within relatively easy reach. But at some point the rig will need to return to its less obtrusive resting place. In anticipation of that, I’ve wanted to attach the monitor to an integrated mount (although I run almost exclusively in VR) and put the keyboard on some sort of swivel. The keyboard mount I got from Sim-Lab is fine, but doesn’t allow you to move back and forth between having it to your side for racing and having it in front of you for general use. I saw a recommendation from someone in one of the Facebook groups to use this swivel mount with a keyboard tray. I couldn’t get on with the tray, so ended up attaching the keyboard to the arm with this VESA adaptor and some Velcro. It turned out so much better than I expected, so I wanted to share the result:

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I’m waiting for a Pro-Sim H-pattern shifter to replace the Fanatec shifter I’ve been using and knew I would want to give it more substantial support. So I swapped out components from the Sim-Lab shifter support, replacing the previous 40x80mm horizontal profile with an 80x80mm section of the same length and likewise replacing the vertical 40x40mm profile with a 40x80mm section. Some additional brackets were necessary to attach it to the frame and I made a custom aluminum plate to sit on top and interface to the shifter. Now I just have to wait for the shifter to arrive, hopefully sometime in early September.

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Thanks. Does the keyboard stay nice and steady as you type? I wondered if the pneumatic arm would have some free play.
It bottoms out and is solid without any play at that point. You need to mount it at a height where this bottoming out point aligns with where you want it to sit when you type. Because of the relative height of my seat and wheel, I have to remove the wheel to have the keyboard flat and directly in front of me.
 
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I was just about to respond to @Mr Latte that I thought I could easily handle the complexity of running 12 independent channels through SimHub when I turned on the computer to discover that something had reset my audio cards from 5.1 to stereo, which in turn had somehow wiped out the distribution of channels among effects in SimHub. This is how I discovered that exporting profiles does not save the channel configuration. I am going to need a stiff drink.
 
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This is how I discovered that exporting profiles does not save the channel configuration

Ouch! Hope you can get it all back to the way it was after that stiff drink. I'd purposely exported any profiles I had thinking I'd be safe if I somehow lost them. After hearing that I'll be taking some screenshots of my channel configs and backing them up.
 
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I was just about to respond to @Mr Latte that I thought I could easily handle the complexity of running 12 independent channels through SimHub when I turned on the computer to discover that something had reset my audio cards from 5.1 to stereo, which in turn had somehow wiped out the distribution of channels among effects in SimHub. This is how I discovered that exporting profiles does not save the channel configuration. I am going to need a stiff drink.

Its been known to happen and sometimes the channel numbers for the soundcard channels get messed up too.
I think you can just about manage 12 channels, I was highlighting that you are at 12 and still tactile only in the seat.
So it will only get harder if you want all channels to work via an audio interface.

With Simhub its a bit of work as IIRC the "Sound Output" menu shows ALL the effects for ALL soundcards but
not only the sound effects active on that soundcard you are selecting. Maybe if you ask on the Discord something can be done to improve this. For example only the sound effects active on that card appear, might be better or easier to manage. Also the ability to CLEAR all selected tabs as that's a real pain in the backside too having to de-select channels manually.

Now what Im about to show you dont tell anyone, its a secret... ;)


When you edit a profile in the properties you can select this. Then when you go to profile manager to export the file and later import it again. It should load with the saved channel/effect/outputs.

I tested this briefly and it was working but I don't know if it's always reliable.
Remember shhhhhh its a big secret. :D
 
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I just tried doing the above and this is what I found...

If you check the "include output settings in this profile" box, all soundcards are disabled.

When you then re-enable the ones you want to use, they default to the "corners" configuration and your previous channel mappings are lost. You then have to reselect and reconfigure once more before exporting a profile.
 
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I just tried doing the above and this is what I found...

If you check the "include output settings in this profile" box, all soundcards are disabled.

When you then re-enable the ones you want to use, they default to the "corners" configuration and your previous channel mappings are lost. You then have to reselect and reconfigure once more before exporting a profile.

When you re-activate the card did you set it to (custom channel map) again?
Im certain this worked for me in the past but its not something I have checked in various configurations.
 
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When you re-activate the card did you set it to (custom channel map) again?
Im certain this worked for me in the past but its not something I have checked in various configurations.

Yes, I had to re-enable the cards I wanted to be active and then set each one back to (custom channel map). Once that was selected I found that all effects were on as default so I had to work my way down through the list, selecting and deselecting to get things back to the way they were.
 
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Yes, I had to re-enable the cards I wanted to be active and then set each one back to (custom channel map). Once that was selected I found that all effects were on as default so I had to work my way down through the list, selecting and deselecting to get things back to the way they were.

Mmmm, not got tactile connected at present but will look at software...
 
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Okay in the "sound manager" and chosen soundcard on left use the export and import feature there Is a way to get this working Im certain.

That should let you save a configuration per soundcard.
Then import or export to have options in how the effects you have loaded are then distributed over the selected soundcard.

This should make it easier to compare effects being placed for different channels.
Also to just load output configs you want.

Let me know if it works
 
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Shifting method

  • I use whatever the car has in real life*

  • I always use paddleshift

  • I always use sequential

  • I always use H-shifter

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