Doom Soundtrack Plays Through New Steam Controller
▼ Summary
– The Steam Controller can produce audio by using its haptic motors to vibrate at specific frequencies, functioning like a small speaker.
– Users can make the controller play MIDI music files using the open-source “Steam Haptics Singer” program, available on GitHub for Windows and Linux.
– The program works with both generations of the Steam Controller and the Steam Deck.
– Valve currently does not offer native sound customization for the controller, but has hinted at possibly adding it in the future if demand is sufficient.
– Valve previously made custom boot videos an official Steam Deck feature after users sideloaded them, suggesting a similar path for controller sounds.
You may already know that Valve’s new Steam Controller can imitate a ringing telephone or belt out the Wilhelm scream. But here’s something even better: it can actually play songs. Let me show you how.
The controller performs the “Ground Theme” from Super Mario Bros. 2 with surprising clarity. It also nails “Still Alive” from Portal , a fitting tribute for Valve hardware. And yes, I even got it to play Doom.
How does a controller with no built-in speaker produce audio at all? The original Steam Controller, though discontinued, was a favorite among tinkerers. Someone even created an open-source program to make it “sing.” Now, less than a month after the launch of the second-generation Steam Controller, resourceful users have adapted that same program to bring music to the new hardware.
“The way the controller makes noise is through the haptic motors in the trackpads,” explains CrazyCritic89, the creator behind the “Still Alive” and Super Mario Bros. 2 videos. Those motors normally provide feedback when your thumb glides over the trackpads, or simulate a button press even though the pads don’t actually click down. But they can also vibrate at “specific frequencies, essentially like a speaker,” CrazyCritic says. Valve uses this capability to play sounds on the controller, and now you can too.
With CrazyCritic89’s Steam Haptics Singer , available on GitHub for both Windows and Linux , you can make your Steam Controller (either generation) or your Steam Deck play MIDI tracks. These simple digital music files contain notes rather than recorded audio. To get my own controller singing, I grabbed some MIDI files online and followed the instructions. It required a bit of tinkering , I had to spend time in the terminal on my Steam Deck’s desktop mode , but when the first notes rang out, I couldn’t stop grinning.
Valve doesn’t currently offer a native way to customize the Steam Controller’s sounds through Steam. We asked the company about it back in April, and Valve’s Pierre-Loup Griffais told The Verge that “it’s possible that there’s going to be more both configurability and customization for that in the future,” but the team isn’t focused on it right now. If Valve does build a sound customization tool, Griffais suggested it would likely be an SDK or a tool available to everyone, and the company might consider it if demand is strong enough.
There’s precedent for this: After Steam Deck users sideloaded custom boot videos, Valve made it an official feature, even adding a dedicated section in the Steam store for additional boot videos. For now, the Steam Haptics Singer is the best way to make your controller sing.
(Source: The Verge)
