Buttkicker

Im wondering if anyone here have and use the buttkicker? Because im curious if it responds to sounds only or if it can respond to when the kamov are shaking as well. From what i understand it is a kind of subwoofer that doesnt sound anything but react to hz(? dont know the terms here) in sound. It comes with a amplifier and you can set what range it will "kick off" to. The propeller and shooting the gun, getting hit etc should feel really nice, but as i said, im wondering if it even can respond to non sounding events as shakes?

For everyone that dont know about the buttkicker it is a device that you attach to your chair. It works as a very powerful subwoofer and shakes your whole body, even out to the mouse hand. You can set volume "power" it will give out and with knobs for ranges you can choose what high/low sounds will be felt. For sims/games with a lot of boom and bang its supposed to be very nice. Its the poor mans motion platform. :) it works perfect with movies and music too. You can play, listen to music and watch movies with huge bass through your body without waking up the family or neighbours.

LINK: http://www.thebuttkicker.com/gaming/index.htm

I don't know about that particular device, but I do know that having any type of sound force feedback increases your sim experience. I have my simpit arranged in a way that my sub provides a similar effect and it's pretty sweet. When those turbines fire up, and you feel it, it kicks ass (or butt).

I would recommend it.

Thanks guys.

Tutmeister: ah thats sad to hear. I read a lot about it and its said to have some knobs where you can set the range so it becomes as you want it. Ah well, sell propaganda then maybe.

Really want something like that to feel guns and tanks shooting in ArmA for example. But if it just shakes to everything i bet it wont get you into the feeling. Maybe new version coming. :)

Thanks for your input.

tactile feedback is themost overlooked part of the simming experience. Once you have fleft a good rumble, you can't fly without it.

Buttkick chairs still dont provide innertial efects.

Besides nobody kicks my ass, not even a lifeless chair! :D

"Feel the game in your ar$e" is not my motto and I dont think anal gameplay is remotly important compared to other things.

www.ivibe.com

Its too bad it is dead now as the owner is MIA. But even so this thing is pretty good given that you can get both postional effects and intenstity of effects mapped to your joystick and throttle positions as well as keystroke triggered effects that you can build yourself. Effects move the vibrations around the seat to simulate positional feedback and G sense

There are some sims supported nativley like Rfactor and MS Flightsim, these are simply amazing. Reference here: http://www.ivibe.com/forum/showthread.php?t=134

Although there is alot of doubt as to the future of this device there is no question that supported properly this could be every bit as big as TIR and a good HOTAS.

The Ivibe can work from audio triggering but that is in fact the weakest part of the concept. These are reall Force feedback actuators and sound is not needed to produce or trigger the effect. And you can taylor it all including cannon rumble, (Nice in the A-10), gear and flaps (all Keystroke driven effects). Increasing main engine rumble (driven by the throttle) and G force effects (driven by postional information from the stick). Pitch back and the effect moves under legs up the back. Roll left and feel the effect move from left to right as you roll. Drive Rfactor using the G-25 wheel and sitting in this thing and you can smell the gasoline.;)

Butt kicker my @ss! This is wasted potential up the wazoo.:D

Out

I fly with Aurora bass shakers, very similiar to the buttkickers. It enhances ALL of my simming. It's great for music and movies too. I can highly reccomend.

I bought it, it wasn't very accurate and therefore decreased my feeling of immersion. I sent it back within 2 weeks for a refund.

 

There is not really any level of "butt kicking", it is kinda all or nothing. So when you're just taxiing around gently, it feels like all hell breaks loose, the same as when you'd fie weapon systems, or whatever. If they had programmable buttkickers it would be much easier.

works great for me here.

I have the ButtKicker Gamer and find that it is great with all my games espically Black Shark. As long as you adjust it properly it works well.

I dont agree with it is either all or nothing as i have found that it gives the correct amount of "buttkicking" when needed.

Well that doesn't say much more than your opinion diveplane. I explained why I felt it wasn't worth it, maybe you could explain so the OP can make an educated decision.

Each to there own bud but I agree with diveplane and will explain why :)

Ok firstly I have only had it for a bit over a day but If you wish to buy the buttkicker gamer NOW is the time to do so. The reason being is it is being fazed out for a new model this year. I just bought the old model for 1/2 price so if you want one look around.

Anyway onto the impressions.

1: When I first unpacked the box I thought wow there be a lot of stuff in here for the cash (Go 1/2 price ftw!!)

2: When I plugged it in I got the same impression as tutmeister. It was rank just vibrating away and I can't say I was real happy with it.

3: It is programmable in a way. You can activate a "low filter cutoff" and also a "high cutoff frequency" button with a dial that has adjustments from 50-110 + it also has a "volume" control. Tho volume would be better thought of as power imo but that would depend on how you look at it I suppose.

Number 3 is the key. Once I started playing with those I ended up loving the thing. At present I have low filter activated High cuttoff button in and the dial set to 50. The "Volume" needs to be matched to my speaker volume of whatever at the time. I did infact dial in the buttkicker with the actual game volume off and only the buttkicker working.

I can feel the gentle thump thump of the rotors and it picks right up if I load them up. Gear coming up a deaf guy would notice etc. OMG the gun almost hurts hahah.

All in all it is not 100% perfect because it works off exactly what a subwoofer would but I am infact very happy with it. So is everyone else I expect because to have a subwoofer that powerfull would invite the police turning up I would think :)

The best way I could think of describing it would be this way...

Ever been to an imax theater and felt the chair shake with what is going on? As I understand it there is a high probability you where actualy sitting on a buttkicker. !!

Remember tuning is the one and only key if you do it right then I 100% recomend this thing. Last night when Iron Man went supersonic I spilt my god damn drink!! Now I am actualy very happy about that :D

BTW down side.... if there is anything at all loose on your chair you are going to know about it in a real hurry. The lever that prevents my chair tipping back vibrated out.... now that is what I call immersion and masking tape is your friend :D

I have butt Kicker, and for 90$ bux from GoGamer, it was a steal...

just make sure you bridge it with the yellow mini RCA connector (those who have 5.1)...because i was bridging it to the black connector ..i thought the black was subwoofer output.

after that, it rocks...u can feel bumps of the tarmarc, to the swipe of the blades ...it was my alternative to the d-box motion platform (goes for something like 10,000 USD)

thumbs UP for buttkicker

I'm interested in getting a buttkicker, I have to wear headphones, cant have surround sound...

I thought they were around $200?

Think it's depending on where you live. In Europe it's still overpriced. But in US it's much cheaper. I have one too and would not like to be without it. Sure it takes a bit of tweaking to find the good settings, especially for different sims.

First time I ejected in lomac, I nearley cr**ped my pants :music_whistling:

Its sooo nice when the afterburner kicks in.

I have moded the fans as they are very noisy.

Instead of two 40mm high pitch fans I have put a 80mm on top.

Took aprox 20 min, much quieter now.

i am another happy owner of the butt kicker gamer,

the key is to set it up correctly and this is a bit of trial and error.

for all it's good it is somewhat of an over glorified bass shaker.

With the associated limitations of only being able to reproduce effects using nothing more than the games sound output i would have to say

all in all it is a pretty nice addition to the simulator experience.

my initial impressions were of dissappointment also, but persevere

and try setting it to give only low level effects rather than chair rattling

overkill, i think it is a nice addition to compliment the rest of our gadgets.

What about when on voice comms? Does it trigger the speaker?

This is why the ivibe is the only real choice and also why the concept even unrealized is far better then the buttkicker concept.

Sound is a sucky sucky way to deliver FF effects IMHO.

Think about a really good racing wheel like a G-25 or even a momo. It delivers effects relative to the environment you are in not just shakes a speaker.

I would gladly buy and use the ivibe even as it is, fully unsupported because it obviously addresses the gross limitations of a bass shaker. It increases immersion because it interacts sensibly with the sim in a tangible and far more controllable manner. Just like a good FF wheel except far more versatile.

For a low budget the buttkicker is not so bad I suppose but it really is a quite unspectacular concept.

Out

BTW down side.... if there is anything at all loose on your chair you are going to know about it in a real hurry. The lever that prevents my chair tipping back vibrated out.... now that is what I call immersion and masking tape is your friend :D

throw some foam in there hehe lol

Think it's depending on where you live. In Europe it's still overpriced. But in US it's much cheaper. I have one too and would not like to be without it. Sure it takes a bit of tweaking to find the good settings, especially for different sims.

 

First time I ejected in lomac, I nearley cr**ped my pants :music_whistling:

Its sooo nice when the afterburner kicks in.

 

 

I have moded the fans as they are very noisy.

Instead of two 40mm high pitch fans I have put a 80mm on top.

Took aprox 20 min, much quieter now.

yea when you eject its insane and when you fire weapons

I'm interested in getting a buttkicker, I have to wear headphones, cant have surround sound...

 

I thought they were around $200?

works great also with headphones this is the way i play = no noise

I bought a butt kicker awhile ago and used it some in MSFS. I was somewhat impressed but wish it worked better. I slipped away from using it but recently wanted to give it a try with BS and to my disappointment, it stopped working :(

The base unit works and the LEDs show it recieves a good audio signal but the vibrator won't vibrate! Damn i'm pissed, don't know what could be wrong. I've only used the thing a few times!!!

UPDATE: Just wanted to share this for others that might run into the problem. I opened up the transducer (allen key) and found a broken wire. It came apart at the solder joint on the little circuit board, probably due to a weak weld and the vibration. So I re-soldered it and that solved my problem. Now it's working as good as new :)

Any good ? would you say that its worth getting?

yeah i like the effect of a vibrating seat but unfortunately, i have to keep it rather low because i don't want to rattle the hell out of the old lady downstairs :)

I got it when it first came out (full price) but haven't used it that much because of that reason. But once I started flying BS I knew it was time to fire it up again.

I'm pretty sure the price is much lower now so it might be worth giving it a try if you want some feedback. i also liked how the recoil of guns feel in FPS games. I gotta give it a spin next time i play crysis........ I have very little time, so it takes me awhile to get through all my favorite games.....lol. Now BS is getting most of that time.

i have butt kicker..its ok..

i only feel the effect when at start up when the rotors wind up, and when i do a rolling take off...other than that... i feel nothing..

i always thought the DCS game sound effects were low...

so your saying i might have a broken wire? when i listen to music, it rox...

in black shark, when flying, my buttkicker is... well nothing.. no vibration..

i feel like editing the black shark effects files for added bass..

I don't have butt kicker, but have experience with others.

I started with the Aurora bass shaker. It felt pretty good.

Later I tried the ivibe. Didn't really like it. Support was lousy.

Then I switched back to the aurora bass shaker.

I found out that it feels better if you don't stick the bass shaker directly below your seat. That's too direct and feels a bit unnatural. I mounted it onto a piece of wood, then mounted the wood a few inches below the seat. The vibration spreads out to the legs first. The rumble feels great.