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Music For PlayStation Lets Users Experience Songs Through Controller Vibrations

Allows hard-of-hearing and deaf users to enjoy music through a Dualsense controller

New Zealand-based sound artist Jesse Austin-Stewart has launched a new project, Music for PlayStation, that allows hard-of-hearing and deaf users to enjoy music played through vibrations on a PlayStation Dualsense controller. As reported by MixMag, users plug their controller into a computer and press play. The controller will then translate each song into vibrations.

“These tracks can only be felt, not heard,” Austin-Stewart says in a recent YouTube video. “This music has been designed so that audiences of all types of hearing, whether hearing, hard of hearing, or D/deaf, can engage with the music on equal terms.”

Anyone can download Music For PlayStation’s tracks from Austin-Stewart’s Bandcamp or stream them via any major streaming service. The project was supported by Creative New Zealand and includes the tracks:  ‘Choppy Waves,’ ‘Pulse,’ ‘Table Tennis,’ ‘What?’  and ‘Phase .’ Austin-Stewart worked with deaf musicians to create the tracks for the project.

“Feel the way that the rhythms move from left to right and the way the changing patterns feel against your palms,” Austin-Stewart says in the video. Jesse Austin-Stewart is a sound artist, producer and composer who strives to make the spatial audio industry more inclusive.

While the project is currently limited to five tracks, it could pave the way for more inclusion in the music industry. Hopefully, in the future, users will be able to experience any song through vibrations.

Tech Promoting Inclusivity 

Music for PlayStation is just one tech project that promotes inclusivity. Recently XRAI Glass released an app that, when paired with a smartphone, translates speech to text, displayed across the screen of AR glasses to aid deaf and hard-of-hearing users. 

In September, Xbox partnered with the Special Olympics for the second annual Gaming for Inclusion Esports event. The event, which featured Special Olympics athletes and Unified partners, was held on two consecutive Saturdays. One thing is certain, the more technology advances, the more opportunities there will be to embrace inclusivity. 

Written By

Jack Brassell is a freelance journalist and aspiring novelist. Jack is a self-proclaimed nerd with a lifelong passion for storytelling. As an author, Jack writes mostly horror and young adult fantasy. Also an avid gamer, she works as the lead news editor at Hardcore Droid. When she isn't writing or playing games, she can often be found binge-watching Parks & Rec or The Office, proudly considering herself to be a cross between Leslie Knope and Pam Beasley.

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