I bought a ButtKicker last week – a used “Butt Kicker Gamer 2” for €120.

Strait away I mounted it under my cockpit chair and plugged it to Flight Simulator using a Y-splitter. I must say very cool! Everything was moving and shaking.

The way it works is by playing low frequency sounds. So plugging it in to MSFS it plays the rumble (low frequency) parts of what MSFS plays. Like a speed brake rumble or engine rumble.

The Butt Kicker comes with an amplifier what allows adjustment of the volume (How heavy it should shake) and a frequency cut off.

A problem with tapping the sound from the main speakers is that some sounds, that you would like to hear, are not all rumble. And not all rumble sounds should go in to the Butt Kicker. Let’s say an aircraft passes by. That should not play a sound. But the engine sound from the other aircraft might trigger the Butt Kicker.

For that reason you are much better off with a dedicated software that connects to the Butt Kicker. In order to achieve this a separate soundcard is necessary. But you can use one of those $5 usb sound cards found on china stores. The dedicated softwares plays sounds based on triggers in the simulator. Spoilers up? That is a trigger. Gear coming up/down? That is a trigger. Aircraft passing by? That is not a trigger. The dedicated software then plays the sound the the additional soundcard and the ButtKicker amplifier gets the sound from that soundcard. So it is a different channel than the main MSFS sounds.

There are different options on software. I googled a bit and read good reviews in SimHaptic. It has a 7-days trail. However I ended buying it after a few days as it was on sale for $20. SimHaptic plays sounds based on triggers in MSFS.

It recognized MSFS and loaded an aircraft profile. If you have other simulators (Sim or racing) I guess it also have profiles for those. The MSFS profile has different settings out of the box. For each trigger it is possible to adjust the effect and volume. So there are endless possibilities of tweaking. But out of the box I am over all satisfied with the profile. Only the Gear up/down needs to go down a bit in volume.

It was a breeze things working out of the box and me not having to spend days creating my own profile.

The Butt Kicker it self is a cool add on to the simulator. Of course it will never be the same as a real aircraft. But the rumble adds to the immersive feeling.

I payed $120 for the Butt Kicker (& amplifier) and $20 for the software. So a total of $140.

Money well spend I think.