Listen to the new Steam Controller tune to the tune of Doom

Here’s the new Steam controller performing the “ground theme” from Super Mario Bros 2:

Here’s “Still Alive” from outlet – Installation of valve devices:

I even made her play death:

Wondering how a controller, which has no speaker, can emit sound at all? Despite this, Valve’s first Steam console It has been stoppedit was a great tool for tinkerers – one even wrote open source software To make it “sing”. Fast forward to now, less than a month after launch Second generation Steam controllerSome enterprising people have used this software to make it “sing” as well.

“The way the controller makes the noise is through the haptic actuators in the trackpads,” CrazyCritic89, the person behind the game “Still Alive” and Super Mario Bros 2 Video clips, he tells Edge. These actuators typically provide feedback when your thumb slides over trackpads, or allow you to “tap” them as a button, even though they don’t actually click down. But haptic actuators can also vibrate at specific frequencies, essentially like a speaker, CrazyCritic explains. Valve uses this to make the controller play sounds, and if you want to make your controller sing, you can now do that too.

With CrazyCritic89 “Steam Haptics Singer”, which is Available on GitHub In the Windows and Linux versions, you can get a Steam Controller (either generation) or your own Steam Deck to play MIDI tracks — simple digital music files that contain notes instead of actual recorded audio. To get my personal Steam controller to play some music, I found some MIDI files online and I followed CrazyCritic89’s instructions. It took a bit of tinkering – I had to spend some time with the device in desktop mode on my Steam Deck to really get my Steam Controller to sing. But when I heard the first notes from my controller, I was grinning from ear to ear.

Valve does not currently offer a way to customize Steam controller sounds natively through Steam. We already asked the company about this in April, and Valve’s Pierre-Loup Greves told us Edge Although “there could be more configurability and customization for this in the future,” the team is not focusing on that at the moment. If Valve creates a proper customization tool, Griffais suggested it would be some sort of SDK or tool that everyone can use, and Valve might consider creating one if the team sees enough demand.

There is a precedent: after seeing Steam Deck users sideload Their custom introductory videos that appear when you turn on the mobile device, Valve has made it an official Steam Deck feature so anyone can join it. They also offer a special place in the Steam store for additional introductory videos from Valve. For now, Steam Haptics Singer will do that.