Controller Audio¶
Play sound through a controller: a real pad speaker on Sony and Wii pads, a vibrating haptic tone on Joy-Con, Pro, Steam, and Deck pads, or a real haptic audio stream on the Steam Controller 2026 over USB or its dongle.
Some controllers can make sound. A DualSense or DualShock 4 has a small speaker in the pad. A Wii Remote has a built-in speaker too. Other controllers have no speaker but can turn a sound into a single vibrating tone. PadForge drives whichever kind the assigned device provides, using a mirror of a Windows audio output and the sound effects your Macros play. The Audio tab is per pad per slot, and it appears when the device selected on the slot can make sound.
When the tab shows¶
The Audio tab appears when the selected mapped device is a model that supports pad audio. Three groups qualify:
- Sony pads with a speaker: DualSense, DualSense Edge, DualShock 4.
- Wii Remote: its built-in speaker.
- Haptic-tone pads: Joy-Con (left, right, or the combined pair), Switch Pro Controller, Steam Controller (2015), the Steam Deck built-in pads, and the Steam Controller 2026 over Bluetooth.
The Steam Controller 2026 is a fourth case when it is on a USB cable or its wireless dongle. There PadForge streams real audio into its four actuators instead of reducing the sound to one tone. See Steam Controller 2026 over USB or the dongle.
Switch 2 controllers are not included: no known method plays an audible tone on them.
Inside the tab, the mirror controls appear for any device with a reachable speaker or actuator:
- DualSense and DualSense Edge: USB or Bluetooth.
- DualShock 4: Bluetooth, the Sony USB wireless adapter, or a cable for the second model (CUH-ZCT2). On the adapter or a cable the pad plays through its own USB audio device, the way a DualSense on USB does. That device is a headset, so the pad plays through its headphone jack only, and the slot's macro sounds go to it only while headphones are plugged in. With nothing plugged in they skip it and play on the system default output or another controller on the slot, which the tab notes when that pad is selected. The first model (CUH-ZCT1) has no audio on a cable, so its mirror controls do not appear and the tab notes that the selected device has no built-in speaker.
- Wii Remote: mirrors into its built-in speaker at the same low rate as its macro sounds.
- Haptic-tone pads: mirror the captured audio as a tracking haptic tone, the same reduction a macro sound gets. Expect a pitch-following buzz, not the source audio.
- Steam Controller 2026 over USB or the dongle: mirror the captured audio into the actuators as a low-passed stream. Bass and rumble come through as vibration. Content above the cutoff you set falls off at 24 dB per octave.
Macro sounds do not depend on the mirror toggle. They play on whatever the slot's assigned devices can produce, whenever a macro fires.
Mirror a Windows audio output¶
Turn on Mirror System Audio to the Controller Speaker and pick a source. PadForge captures that Windows output with a loopback and streams it to the pad speaker.
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| Mirror System Audio to the Controller Speaker | Per-device toggle. Off by default. |
| Mirror Source | "System Default" or any active output device on the PC. |
| Master Volume | 0–100. Slot-wide: one level for every device on the slot, unlike the per-device mirror and tone settings. Sets the level on DualSense, DualSense Edge, and the haptic-tone pads. On a DualShock 4 and a Wii Remote it sets the level of macro sounds, as it does for macro sounds that fall back to the PC's default output. Each Play Sound action's own volume multiplies with it. |
On a DualSense or DualShock 4, picking "System Default" follows whatever Windows is using at the moment. Switch from speakers to headphones and the mirror follows, with nothing to reconfigure. A Wii Remote or haptic-tone pad keeps capturing the output that was the default when its mirror started. Pick a specific output instead when you want one particular device's sound on the pad.
The mirror captures a Windows output endpoint, not a single program. To send one game's sound to the pad, point that game (or all of Windows) at the output you are mirroring. A game's own controller audio needs no mirror when the slot's virtual controller carries audio, as the default DualSense for new PlayStation slots does: the game plays it to that virtual pad, and PadForge passes it to the physical Sony pads on the slot. On other slots, point the game at the output you are mirroring.
Haptic-tone pad controls¶
Joy-Con, Pro, Steam, Deck, and Steam Controller 2026 pads show three extra control groups in the Sound Output card. A resonant actuator buzzing along with background music is more intrusive than a small speaker playing it, so the first two let you rein it in.
Play Mirrored Audio¶
Choose when the mirror tone plays.
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Always | The tone tracks the mirrored audio the whole time the mirror is on. Default. |
| While an Input Is Held | The tone plays only while a button or trigger you pick is held. An Engage Input picker with a record button sets that input. |
| While the Game Rumbles | The tone plays only while the slot's game vibration is active, including haptics a game plays through a DualSense (PS5): Full controller's audio. |
Whenever the tone is gated to an input or to rumble, a Release Delay box keeps it playing for a moment after that source stops, so it does not clip off the instant the source drops. Default 500 ms.
High Tones¶
Decide what happens to pitches above a limit you set. This applies to the mirror, macro sounds, and the test tone.
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Off | Every pitch plays. Default. |
| Cut Them Off | Pitches above the limit go silent. |
| Fold Them Down an Octave | Pitches above the limit drop an octave at a time until they fall under it, keeping their pitch character lower down. |
Tone Limit sets the cutoff, default 800 Hz. That keeps engine and impact rumble while catching high-pitched beeps. Folding is the gentler choice.
Play DualSense Haptics on This Controller¶
Off by default. When a game drives the slot as a virtual DualSense and sends authored haptic audio, that track plays on this pad's actuators as tones. It is derived from the audio, so it approximates the designer's feel rather than reproducing it. Turning it on reveals a Haptics Gain slider, 25 to 300%, default 100%. With it off, the pad feels the track as rumble instead, through its Force Feedback settings.
On a Steam Controller 2026 over USB or the dongle the same toggle feeds the haptic track into the actuator stream as audio rather than as a tone, so the game's authored haptics play as the designer mixed them, below the low-pass cutoff.
Actuator Low-Pass Cutoff¶
Shown only for a Steam Controller 2026 on a USB cable or its dongle. Keeps the haptic stream below this frequency so the pads vibrate instead of audibly playing sound. Around 250 Hz the actuators start to become audible. Raise it for sharper detail, lower it for quieter play. Range 60 to 1000 Hz, default 250, with a reset button whose tooltip reads "Reset to 250 Hz". The High Tones setting does nothing on this pad over those two transports. The cutoff takes its place.
Steam Controller 2026 over USB or the dongle¶
The Steam Controller 2026's firmware accepts a continuous audio stream for its actuators, two trackpads and two grips, over the USB cable and over the wireless dongle. PadForge uses it. On those two transports the pad is no longer a haptic-tone pad. Everything the slot plays, the system mirror, macro sounds, the Test button, the touchpad swipe ticks, and a virtual DualSense's authored haptics when the toggle above is on, is mixed into one stream and sent to the actuators as audio at 8 kHz. Nothing has to be turned on. Assign the pad, and the Audio tab's mirror and macro sounds start using the stream.
Several sources play at once without one silencing another. A game's haptics keep playing while a macro sound fires or the mirror runs. The Test button is the exception: for its 350 ms it replaces the mix with an 880 Hz tone that skips the cutoff.
What to expect:
- Low frequencies are what the actuators render well. The cutoff above defaults to 250 Hz, so bass, engine rumble, and impacts come through as vibration and higher content is filtered off before it reaches the pad.
- Over Bluetooth the pad falls back to the single-tone path described on this page, since no known implementation sustains the full-rate stream over a direct Bluetooth link.
- The stream starts when there is something to play and stops two seconds after the last sound, so an idle pad sends nothing.
- Over the dongle the audio is 8-bit companded (G.711 mu-law), a dongle bandwidth limit. Over the cable it is 16-bit.
The stream was confirmed working by the requester on their own pad. Detail on the protocol is on Steam Controller Haptics Internals.
DualSense headset jack¶
A DualSense or DualSense Edge adds these rows under Master Volume. Audio Buffer Length appears only over Bluetooth.
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| Headphone Volume | Hardware volume of the pad's headset jack, 0-100. Written into the pad's firmware register, so it holds with no app in the loop. The Raise Headphone Volume and Lower Headphone Volume macro actions step the same setting by 10% each. |
| Audio Buffer Length | The Bluetooth audio buffer, 16 to 255, default 48. One buffer carries the speaker, the haptics, and the microphone together, so it is not a speaker knob on its own. Lower is less delay and more dropouts. A change takes effect a few seconds later. |
| Output Path | Where the pad plays its audio: Default, Headphones (Stereo), Headphones (Mono), Headphones + Speaker, Speaker Only, Follow Headphone Jack. |
Headphones + Speaker plays mono on the headset side, a firmware limit. Over Bluetooth that mode plays through the headphones only. Follow Headphone Jack switches to headphones when something is plugged in and back to the speaker when unplugged. PadForge reads the jack state from the pad itself whenever the slot has audio to play, over USB or Bluetooth, so the switch works with or without a virtual DualSense on the slot.
A DualShock 4 on Bluetooth gets Headphone Volume and Output Path as well, described under DualShock 4 headset jack.
A DualSense on Bluetooth and USB at once¶
Plug a cable into a DualSense that is already paired over Bluetooth and the pad holds both links for a while. Its firmware mutes the USB audio interface in both directions while the Bluetooth link stands: the speaker endpoint still shows up in Windows and plays without error, and nothing comes out. When PadForge builds the wired audio path for such a pad it drops the stale Bluetooth link itself, once per plug-in, so the speaker plays. Input had already moved to USB. This finishes the switch for audio.
The drop runs once for each time you plug the cable in. If you re-link Bluetooth on purpose while the cable stays in, PadForge leaves that link alone until the next unplug. A pad that was never on Bluetooth is unaffected. The fix was verified end to end on a DualSense: the dual state formed live, the drop fired within five seconds, and the mirror measured on the pad's own microphone at the same level as a USB-only pad.
DualShock 4 headset jack¶
A DualShock 4 on Bluetooth gets two of the DualSense's rows under Master Volume, Headphone Volume and Output Path, and they work the same way. Its stream plays on the built-in speaker or on the headphone jack, never both at once, so Output Path leaves Headphones + Speaker out of its list. Audio Buffer Length stays DualSense-only, since the DualShock 4 has no such setting.
| Output Path | Where a DualShock 4 plays |
|---|---|
| Default | The built-in speaker, in mono, as in 5.1.0 and earlier |
| Headphones (Stereo) | The headphone jack, in stereo, with the speaker muted |
| Headphones (Mono) | The headphone jack, the same sound in both ears, with the speaker muted |
| Speaker Only | The built-in speaker, in mono, with the jack muted |
| Follow Headphone Jack | Headphones (Stereo) while something is plugged in and Speaker Only while nothing is. Default until PadForge has read the jack once |
Headphone Volume sets the jack's level from 0 to 100, and the Raise Headphone Volume and Lower Headphone Volume macro actions step it by 10%. PadForge reads the jack from the pad's own reports, so Follow Headphone Jack works with or without a virtual controller on the slot.
A headset microphone plugged into the jack works too. When the slot's virtual controller carries audio, the microphone becomes that virtual controller's microphone in Windows, so a game or chat app records from it, and Voice Macros can listen to it as well. PadForge turns the controller's microphone on only while something records or listens, since an open microphone uses Bluetooth bandwidth.
The stream to the pad keeps running through quiet stretches instead of stopping two seconds after the last sound. It sends silence instead, as DS4-Sound-Link does, whose notes say a stop makes the controller pop and power down its headphone amplifier. It ends when nothing on the slot plays to the pad anymore: Mirror System Audio is off, no macro sound plays on the controller, and no virtual controller sends it audio.
Crossfeed, EQ, and limiter¶
Under Output Path (under Master Volume on a DualShock 4 on a cable or on Sony's USB wireless adapter), the DualSense, DualSense Edge, and DualShock 4 get a short processing chain that runs on everything the slot plays, mirror audio and macro sounds alike, before it is encoded for the pad. Pads that play sound as a haptic tone, and the Wii Remote, do not get these rows. Three stages, in this order: crossfeed, then the parametric EQ, then the limiter. All three are per pad per slot, and every row has its own reset button.
Crossfeed¶
Headphones hand each ear one channel and nothing of the other, which never happens with speakers and is part of why hard-panned game audio over the DualSense jack wears on you. Crossfeed mixes a little of each channel into the other, the way a room does. The picker carries the classic bs2b presets, each shown with the cutoff and feed it stores:
| Level | Cutoff, feed |
|---|---|
| Off | |
| Low, Medium, High | 360 Hz at 6.0 dB, 500 Hz at 4.5 dB, 700 Hz at 3.0 dB |
| Low (Easy), Medium (Easy), High (Easy) | 360 Hz at 8.4 dB, 500 Hz at 7.2 dB, 700 Hz at 6.0 dB. High (Easy) is the C. Moy setting. |
| Jan Meier | 650 Hz at 9.5 dB |
| bs2b default | 700 Hz at 4.5 dB |
| Custom | Your own Cutoff (300 to 2000 Hz) and Feed (1.0 to 15.0 dB) on two sliders |
Cutoff is the crossover: below it the channels blend toward mono, above it they stay separated, so a lower cutoff crossfeeds less. Feed is how far below the direct sound the opposite channel arrives under the cutoff, so a higher feed crossfeeds less. The ranges are libbs2b's own.
Crossfeed only runs on a genuine stereo route. That means Output Path set to Default or Headphones (Stereo), or Follow Headphone Jack unless it has switched to the speaker. The mono headset paths and Speaker Only carry a mono mix, and crossfeed is skipped there rather than run over nothing. On a DualShock 4, whose Default is the mono speaker, it runs on Headphones (Stereo), and on Follow Headphone Jack while something is plugged in.
Parametric EQ¶
Turn on Parametric EQ and a graphic EQ appears: a log-frequency curve from 20 Hz to 20 kHz with the summed response drawn across it and one handle per band. Drag a handle to move its frequency, and its gain on Peak and shelf bands. Roll the wheel over a handle to widen or narrow it (Q). Under the curve, each band has a row with an on switch, a type picker, and Freq (Hz), Gain (dB), and Q boxes you can type into. Band types are Peak, Low Shelf, High Shelf, High Pass, Low Pass, and Notch. Add Band appends a 1 kHz peak, Clear removes them all, and the Preamp row sets the overall level before the bands.
For a correction matched to a specific pair of headphones, use AutoEq:
- Open autoeq.app and choose your headphone model.
- Pick Custom Parametric Eq and download it. You get a
.txt. - Back in PadForge, turn on Parametric EQ, click Import from File, and pick that
.txt.
The import replaces the bands and sets the preamp AutoEq ships (a negative value so the profile's boosts do not clip). A status line under the buttons says what it did, naming the band count, the preamp, and the file. Import from Clipboard does the same for a profile that arrived as text, from the AutoEq repo or a forum post.
Do not use AutoEq's Graphic Eq download. It carries no filter lines and cannot be imported. If you pick it, the status line says so and your current EQ is left alone, which is also what happens for anything else unreadable.
Limiter¶
On by default, with a Ceiling slider. The chain feeds the Bluetooth encoder or the USB audio output directly, so a band boosted by a few dB without a limiter clips there, and that clipping sounds far worse than the boost sounds better. Leave it on whenever any band is above 0 dB.
Macro sounds¶
A macro Play Sound action fans out to every sound sink the slot's assigned devices provide. A Sony pad or Wii Remote plays it through the speaker. A haptic-tone pad plays it as a vibrating tone. If the slot has no sound-capable device, the sound falls back to the PC's default output.
One macro can reach several devices at once. Assign a DualSense and a Joy-Con to the same slot and a macro sound plays on both: the pad speaker and the Joy-Con tone.
Supported files for a macro's own sound: WAV, MP3, M4A, AAC, WMA, and FLAC, played through Windows' built-in codecs. A sound package can also carry OGG files, which play the same way. Anything bundled in a package plays like a loose file.
Real speaker vs haptic tone¶
The two kinds of output sound very different.
Real speaker (higher fidelity). DualSense, DualSense Edge, and DualShock 4 play through their actual pad speaker. A DualShock 4 reaches its speaker over Bluetooth. On a cable the second model plays through its headphone jack, and so does a pad on Sony's USB wireless adapter. The Wii Remote plays through its built-in speaker at a low sample rate, so expect beeps and short cues, not music or speech.
Haptic tone (lower fidelity). Joy-Con, Pro, Steam, Deck, and Steam Controller 2026 pads have no speaker, only haptic actuators. PadForge reduces the sound to a single vibrating tone: one dominant pitch with a volume envelope. Beeps, alerts, and simple melodic cues come through. Speech and music do not. A haptic actuator plays one frequency at a time, so however many a pad has (one on a lone Joy-Con, two on a Pro or Steam Controller, four on the Steam Controller 2026) it still plays that one mono tone. A combined Joy-Con pair plays it through both Joy-Cons, and while a game is rumbling, the tone follows the side the rumble drives: left motor plays the left Joy-Con, right motor the right, both or neither play both. Pick short, distinct sounds for these pads.
Haptic stream (the Steam Controller 2026 over USB or the dongle). The sound itself goes to the actuators, low-passed at the cutoff you set. Bass-heavy cues land as felt vibration. A high beep is filtered out unless you raise the cutoff, at which point the pad starts to be audible as a small speaker.
Sound packages and macros on this tab¶
Two more cards sit below the Sound Output controls.
- Sound Macros. A quick list of the slot's sound macros. New Sound Macro creates one. Click a row to open that macro in the Macros tab.
- Sound Packages. Add Package… registers an existing
.pfsoundsfile. Create Package… bundles sound files you pick into a new.pfsoundsfile. Remove takes a package off the list without deleting the file.
A .pfsounds package travels with a shared profile. A macro that plays a packaged sound resolves on another PC once that PC has the same package file.
Test, stop, and reset¶
| Button | What it does |
|---|---|
| Test | Plays a short test tone on the selected device only, so you can check one pad without firing the others on the slot. On a haptic-tone pad it plays as a brief vibrating tone. On a Sony pad it plays only while the pad already has audio running: the mirror on, a sound macro on the slot, or a virtual controller with audio. |
| Stop All Sounds | Stops every macro sound playing on the slot. The mirror keeps running. |
Every setting row has its own reset button that returns just that setting to its default. The Sound Output card header carries a Reset All button that clears the whole card for the selected device at once and returns the slot-wide Master Volume to 100%.
Limits¶
- A first-model DualShock 4 (CUH-ZCT1) plays over Bluetooth only. It has no audio on a cable. On a cable the second model plays through its headphone jack only, and so does any DualShock 4 on Sony's USB wireless adapter, because their USB audio device is a headset. Headphone Volume and Output Path are Bluetooth rows.
- A DualShock 4 streams while audio routes to it. Its stream runs through silence for as long as the slot plays anything to it, which keeps its radio busy and draws on its battery. Turn Mirror System Audio off when you do not need it.
- The mirror is endpoint-level, not per-app. It mirrors a Windows output device, not one program's sound.
- The pad speaker is small. It suits voice, prompts, and effects more than music.
- Haptic-tone pads render one pitch, not audio. Joy-Con, Pro, Steam, Deck, and the Steam Controller 2026 over Bluetooth reduce a sound to a single vibrating tone. Use them for beeps and short cues. Speech and music will not survive the trip.
- The Steam Controller 2026 stream is low-passed. Over USB or the dongle the pad gets real audio, but only what sits under the Actuator Low-Pass Cutoff, apart from the Test button's tone. It is a vibration channel, not a speaker.
- A dual-connected DualSense needs the radio dropped. The pad's own firmware mutes USB audio while a Bluetooth link stands. PadForge drops that link when it builds the wired audio path. A DualSense whose radio was dropped while the cable is in does not re-link on the PS button until you unplug it.
- The Wii Remote speaker is low-rate. Expect beeps and short cues, not clean playback.
- Switch 2 controllers have no audio output here. They do not appear in the Audio tab.
Related pages¶
- Macros: the Play Sound action and sound packages that feed the speaker.
- Force Feedback: the rumble the slot receives from games. The slot's Bass Shakers tab runs the opposite direction of this page: it routes that rumble to an audio output as low-frequency tones for a bass shaker or subwoofer.
- Lighting: the other DualSense and DualShock 4 output feature.
- Adaptive Triggers: trigger feedback on the same pads.
- Controller Slots: assign a DualSense or DualShock 4 to a slot.
- Devices: confirm the pad and its connection (USB or Bluetooth).
- Remote Link: send the pad speaker audio to a pad on another PC.
- Steam Controller Haptics Internals: the actuator stream protocol.
Last updated for PadForge 5.2.0.