Shakersynth

Shakersynth is an alternative approach to driving tactile transducers (aka. bass shakers) from DCS World. It uses parametric real-time audio synthesis, provided by pyo, enabling it to create sounds that are dynamically derived from DCS telemetry data.

The canonical use-case is helicopter rotor vibrations. Shakersynth continuously adjusts multiple properties of the vibration to match the rotor in the simulator, so you can feel each blade as it passes overhead.

Demo

Play these videos through your bass shakers to (literally) get a feel for what Shakersynth can do.

Note: These videos are taken from an older version. The new version has an improved effect.

• UH-1H Demo Video
• Mi-8 Demo Video

Development Status

Currently, Shakersynth provides only rotor vibrations for the Mi-8 , Mi-24, and UH-1H. It's best to run it alongside SimShaker Sound Module, which does a good job of handling a wide range of effects that don't benefit so much from the real-time synthesis approach.

Over time, Shakersynth could support more effects and more aircraft, but the initial priority was to get a really good rotor effect for helicopters.

Installation

Shakersynth is a basic, text-mode application with no GUI. Getting it running is a little bit fiddly. Sorry about that.

1. Install Python 3
   👉 Be sure to select options to add Python to the PATH environment variable.
2. Open PowerShell and run:

   pip install shakersynth

3. Edit this file:

   %UserProfile%\Saved Games\DCS\Scripts\Export.lua
   

   adding this line:

   dofile(require('lfs').writedir()..'Scripts/Shakersynth.lua')

4. Back in PowerShell, run:

   shakersynth
   

5. Shakersynth will show a list of audio outputs. Find the number that corresponds to your bass shaker interface and enter that number at the prompt.
6. Run DCS.

Configuration

When first run, Shakersynth creates a default configuration file at:

%LOCALAPPDATA%\Shakersynth\shakersynth.yml

On my system, that becomes:

C:\Users\jarpy\AppData\Local\Shakersynth\shakersynth.yml

You may need to edit this file to set some important options like the sample rate and output volume. It is written in the YAML format.

Individual configuration options are documented with comments in the file. If you delete the file, it will be recreated with the current defaults, so if anything goes wrong, just delete it and run Shakersynth again.

Upgrading to a new version

Open PowerShell and run:

pip install --upgrade shakersynth

Contributing

Take a look at at the development docs if you are interested in contributing to ShakerSynth (or would just to like to muck around with the software). Welcome!