I read the note at the bottom about the recordings coming from the community, but I think that variation limits the value significantly.
The Cherry Blue vs Cherry Blue (Full Travel) for example. I would expect the full travel to be louder, the normal sound plus the bottom out, but it seems quieter and more generic. The Cherry Browns were the same way.
Having recordings where there is a lot of control around the recording (same room, mic, distance, levels, etc) and the only variable is the keyboard, would be much more interesting. As it stands, I don’t feel like it’s giving me a true representation that I can use. I’m sure some are, but if I haven’t used a particular keyboard before, I can’t be a good judge of if the sound is accurate or not.
I would recommend checking out Chyrosran22's keyboard reviews for a more fair comparison across different boards. He's reviewed just about every switch type under the sun at this point - https://www.youtube.com/@Chyrosran22/videos
At the end of every review he does a typing test, and for the last few years at least I think the mic has been in more or less the same kind of position and they've been recorded in the same room. You still have to apply a pinch of salt because I don't know if there's been significant differences in audio level normalisation/compression/EQ, but it would give you a more representative idea of what to expect.
On every keyboard I get, I swap the switches out for silent tactiles[0][1] that I've selected through trial and error. Quiet is really nice (my mouse clicks are louder), but the way they feel is fantastic.
I wish there was a brick and mortar that let you try out a good range of these switches. Places like microcenter have the popular standard choices, but there's so many other switches out there that are just worlds different.
yeah silent tactiles are a gap, the tactile section is all loud stuff (pandas,
banana split), nothing quiet. boba u4 should be on there, adding next round.
brick and mortar thing is real. microcenter's basically it for physical. novelkeys and kbdfans sell $8 switch tester packs with ~10 switches each, not a store but at least you feel them before committing.
I'm admittedly only a very surface level keyboard person (I can tell you the difference between Cherry reds, blues, and browns and know what a buckling spring is but not much use outside that), but aren't tactiles generally pretty quiet? Not as quiet as linears but honestly what I expect a keyboard to sound like
Generally yes, I think many people confuse and correlate clicky switches with tactile switches.
Clicky switches are always tactile, but tactile switches arent always clicky.
Some have even quieter actuation but at that point I'd argue the biggest difference relates to bottoming out the switch and if theres any dampening efforts there.
Looks like a cool website, but after I test a few different keyboards it prompts me to subscribe. After pressing 'maybe later', it comes back again and again, only letting me test three different keyboards before bugging me again. Completely unusable.
I couldn't even get the X box to work to close a particular keyboard and then select another. One time it worked but I couldn't tap on any other keyboards and I had to reload the page to be able to select another one.
EDIT: now it's working, don't know why it repeatedly wasn't.
The UX of the website is kind of horrible. After a few clicks it prompted to subscribe. I understand it takes time to build the thing up, but the disruption is huge.
Love this. Small suggestion for mobile UX: either hide the system keyboard, or allow the user to hear the currently selected typewriter sounds for their system keyboard taps. Not sure this is intended behaviour, but typing on mobile gives a generic click unless I use the poky on-page keyboard and thus lose the muscle memory needed to type quickly or accurately.
Also navigating back in mobile browser should close the active keyboard as on a small screen it looks like you are on a new page so it's surprising when back throws you out of the site.
Someone should add a grid of mics and speakers inside a keyboard to record impulse responses for different kinds of keys. In this way, one can first do noise cancellation for the currently used keys, and then apply an IR to make the keyboard sound like another one.
As someone who doesn't pay much attention to the world of mechanical keyboards, very happy that I can use "thock" as a filter.
EDIT: A quick Google shows it's a pretty popular term, so I guess that's how I even know about it, the only other mechanical keyboard term in my vocabulary being "Cherry MX Blue clicky switches" for the ones on my AliExpress mechanical keyboard that prevent me from using the keyboard around other people. Unfortunately it also makes it difficult to hear the keyboard sounds without clicking on the letters instead :(
i've wasted 2 weeks of my adult life on diy mechanical keyboards.. i did build one in the end. unless you're in desperate need of a recreational hobby, i'd not advise anyone to get into it. i'm convinced the whole thing is manchild territory
I don't know if I'd go so far as to call it "manchild" territory: hobbies are fine, and if your hobby is DIY mechanical keyboards, more power to you.
Where I start to break out the scepticism is when people start talking about how much more productive they are because of their fancy keyboard, or how important exactly the right keyboard is to productivity.
That's mostly nonsense.
I've got valuable work done in a whole variety of more and less ideal/noisy/comfortable/uncomfortable environments on a 13 inch laptop using its built-in keyboard.
The primary driver that makes you productive or non-productive is your motivation. If you want to get it done you'll get it done. To a very large extent, everything else is incremental. Multiple monitors, fancy keyboard, cool mouse, ergonomic chair, whatever. They're nice, and they do help a bit. But, fundamentally, what really gets things over the line is desire, motivation.
Whereas a lot of this work adjacent stuff is a form of procrastination.
I've gone through a similar experience with musical instruments and studio gear, versus actual music creation. At some point you just have to stop tinkering and start making music, and what I've realised is that the only item I have available to me at almost all times to do that is my laptop, so maybe I should focus on working in the box instead of on acquiring more hardware.
I have to disagree. It isn't nonsense that a good keyboard feels good, and something that feels good makes someone more productive by inspiring them.
What is nonsense is that everyone cares. For some people it won't make any difference. It also won't make any difference in the quality of work (except in the case the keyboard is broken) when you force yourself to work.
If a good keyboard gets your over the hump and working then it isn't procrastination.
I really hated most keyboards but had realized that some keyboards were better than others: for example in the nineties I had an amazing keyboard on a Mac. Then I worked on IBM Model M a tiny bit (big mainframe terminals).
So I started looking for both a shape and a switch that'd suit me. I obsessed over it.
I even got a few collectible ones: a very rare split Cherry MX-5000 keyboard (comes stock with cherry brown switches but they could be swapped) and then the rare real "industrial" IBM Model M (in olive grey instead of beige color).
Eventually I found out Topre switches on the japanese HHKB keyboars (Happy Hacking Keyboard) and as I've got family in Japan, I had three HHKB Pro JP shipped to me (when family would come to visit).
I don't speak/type japanese but I dig that japanese version as a very narrow spacebar and hence more modifiers and modifiers that are easier to reach with the thumbs.
Been a happy camper since more than 10 years now.
So basically... Maybe I obsessed over it a bit but then I eventually "found" my keyboard and it's the HHKB Pro JP and found my switch: and my switch is Topre and nothing else.
In general I find noise the unimportant part. I'm not listening to my keyboards (except my midi keyboards, and even then it isn't the physical keyboard it is what the sound engine it connects to does). Keyboard reviews focus on that because sound is something that can be objectively measured in a video. I tell by watching a video if I will like how a keyboard feels in my fingers.
On the old[0] MyNoise app, there's "Calm Office" which has generators for "Keyboards & Mouse"[1] and "Keyboards"[2].
There's also "Vintage Office" which has "Mechanical Keyboard"[3].
Both have a variety of other ambiences that could fill out "typing room" (especially if you made a multi-generator.)
But yeah, it could do with a bit more variety of "office" and "keyboard" generators.
[0] I dislike the new app's UI/UX, it doesn't support multi-generators, and there's no easy way to download all the generators you have access to. (You also have to pay again for lifetime access but that I'm fine with.)
As a software developer, I absolutely despise loud keyboard sounds that I didn’t produce myself. In an office setting, fast typists with loud mechanical keyboards are the absolute worst (thank God for AirPods)!
I made (read: assembled) a lot of keyboards and tuned the sound to my liking, sometimes i would record the sound to share it with friends but the recordings always turned out horrible, not at all what I was hearing.
The frequency response of the mic probably has a lot to do with it; and unless you use stereo mics on a dummy head, the spatial effects won't be quite the same.
The HHKB was a Niz Purple Hybrid as a Topre stand-in — flagged as a "proxy" in the methodology but the name was still HHKB, which was misleading. Swapped it for a real HHKB Pro Hybrid recording (CC0 sample from grcekh on Freesound).
Unicomp was outright broken, a single file mapped to every key, which is why it sounded very wrong. It now uses the bucklespring recording from the Model M entry, which is actually authentic because Unicomp builds these on the original IBM tooling. Both fixes are live now.
I read the note at the bottom about the recordings coming from the community, but I think that variation limits the value significantly.
The Cherry Blue vs Cherry Blue (Full Travel) for example. I would expect the full travel to be louder, the normal sound plus the bottom out, but it seems quieter and more generic. The Cherry Browns were the same way.
Having recordings where there is a lot of control around the recording (same room, mic, distance, levels, etc) and the only variable is the keyboard, would be much more interesting. As it stands, I don’t feel like it’s giving me a true representation that I can use. I’m sure some are, but if I haven’t used a particular keyboard before, I can’t be a good judge of if the sound is accurate or not.
I would recommend checking out Chyrosran22's keyboard reviews for a more fair comparison across different boards. He's reviewed just about every switch type under the sun at this point - https://www.youtube.com/@Chyrosran22/videos
At the end of every review he does a typing test, and for the last few years at least I think the mic has been in more or less the same kind of position and they've been recorded in the same room. You still have to apply a pinch of salt because I don't know if there's been significant differences in audio level normalisation/compression/EQ, but it would give you a more representative idea of what to expect.
> (same room, mic, distance, levels, etc) and the only variable is the keyboard, would be much more interesting
can't agree more with this.
I have the novelkey creams for example, and they sound nothing like in the sound representation.
People forget how much the plate, material of the keyboard etc vary the sound.
On every keyboard I get, I swap the switches out for silent tactiles[0][1] that I've selected through trial and error. Quiet is really nice (my mouse clicks are louder), but the way they feel is fantastic.
I wish there was a brick and mortar that let you try out a good range of these switches. Places like microcenter have the popular standard choices, but there's so many other switches out there that are just worlds different.
[0] standard preference: https://a.co/d/03j6Boy0
[1] low profile preference: https://a.co/d/06yVB6jg
>My keyboard demo day at Fry's (2011)
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=25572.0
yeah silent tactiles are a gap, the tactile section is all loud stuff (pandas, banana split), nothing quiet. boba u4 should be on there, adding next round.
brick and mortar thing is real. microcenter's basically it for physical. novelkeys and kbdfans sell $8 switch tester packs with ~10 switches each, not a store but at least you feel them before committing.
I'm admittedly only a very surface level keyboard person (I can tell you the difference between Cherry reds, blues, and browns and know what a buckling spring is but not much use outside that), but aren't tactiles generally pretty quiet? Not as quiet as linears but honestly what I expect a keyboard to sound like
Generally yes, I think many people confuse and correlate clicky switches with tactile switches.
Clicky switches are always tactile, but tactile switches arent always clicky.
Some have even quieter actuation but at that point I'd argue the biggest difference relates to bottoming out the switch and if theres any dampening efforts there.
Yes, silence should be the default
Looks like a cool website, but after I test a few different keyboards it prompts me to subscribe. After pressing 'maybe later', it comes back again and again, only letting me test three different keyboards before bugging me again. Completely unusable.
I couldn't even get the X box to work to close a particular keyboard and then select another. One time it worked but I couldn't tap on any other keyboards and I had to reload the page to be able to select another one.
EDIT: now it's working, don't know why it repeatedly wasn't.
"Completely unusable" is an over-exaggeration. By default, assume good will.
Removing it
Now its cleaner. Thank you!
The UX of the website is kind of horrible. After a few clicks it prompted to subscribe. I understand it takes time to build the thing up, but the disruption is huge.
Why do they want my email though? Well, I can guess why. But why would some random email be useful for such a site?
Building a newsletter, so I can keep sending cool pieces to your inbox
Everybody hates this and you know it, worsening the experience of real people for an absurdly small chance of personal profit
removed it
what profit?
Love this. Small suggestion for mobile UX: either hide the system keyboard, or allow the user to hear the currently selected typewriter sounds for their system keyboard taps. Not sure this is intended behaviour, but typing on mobile gives a generic click unless I use the poky on-page keyboard and thus lose the muscle memory needed to type quickly or accurately.
Also navigating back in mobile browser should close the active keyboard as on a small screen it looks like you are on a new page so it's surprising when back throws you out of the site.
Fixed it, the iOS was cutting the audio pack
Someone should add a grid of mics and speakers inside a keyboard to record impulse responses for different kinds of keys. In this way, one can first do noise cancellation for the currently used keys, and then apply an IR to make the keyboard sound like another one.
I wish you could play it without typing. I can't hear it over my Cherry MX browns.
Added "Play" button in the sidebar
As someone who doesn't pay much attention to the world of mechanical keyboards, very happy that I can use "thock" as a filter.
EDIT: A quick Google shows it's a pretty popular term, so I guess that's how I even know about it, the only other mechanical keyboard term in my vocabulary being "Cherry MX Blue clicky switches" for the ones on my AliExpress mechanical keyboard that prevent me from using the keyboard around other people. Unfortunately it also makes it difficult to hear the keyboard sounds without clicking on the letters instead :(
Thock is a filter if you type in the bar, and adding "Play sample" button, didn't think of it, but a good idea!
i've wasted 2 weeks of my adult life on diy mechanical keyboards.. i did build one in the end. unless you're in desperate need of a recreational hobby, i'd not advise anyone to get into it. i'm convinced the whole thing is manchild territory
I don't know if I'd go so far as to call it "manchild" territory: hobbies are fine, and if your hobby is DIY mechanical keyboards, more power to you.
Where I start to break out the scepticism is when people start talking about how much more productive they are because of their fancy keyboard, or how important exactly the right keyboard is to productivity.
That's mostly nonsense.
I've got valuable work done in a whole variety of more and less ideal/noisy/comfortable/uncomfortable environments on a 13 inch laptop using its built-in keyboard.
The primary driver that makes you productive or non-productive is your motivation. If you want to get it done you'll get it done. To a very large extent, everything else is incremental. Multiple monitors, fancy keyboard, cool mouse, ergonomic chair, whatever. They're nice, and they do help a bit. But, fundamentally, what really gets things over the line is desire, motivation.
Whereas a lot of this work adjacent stuff is a form of procrastination.
I've gone through a similar experience with musical instruments and studio gear, versus actual music creation. At some point you just have to stop tinkering and start making music, and what I've realised is that the only item I have available to me at almost all times to do that is my laptop, so maybe I should focus on working in the box instead of on acquiring more hardware.
I have to disagree. It isn't nonsense that a good keyboard feels good, and something that feels good makes someone more productive by inspiring them.
What is nonsense is that everyone cares. For some people it won't make any difference. It also won't make any difference in the quality of work (except in the case the keyboard is broken) when you force yourself to work.
If a good keyboard gets your over the hump and working then it isn't procrastination.
I really hated most keyboards but had realized that some keyboards were better than others: for example in the nineties I had an amazing keyboard on a Mac. Then I worked on IBM Model M a tiny bit (big mainframe terminals).
So I started looking for both a shape and a switch that'd suit me. I obsessed over it.
I even got a few collectible ones: a very rare split Cherry MX-5000 keyboard (comes stock with cherry brown switches but they could be swapped) and then the rare real "industrial" IBM Model M (in olive grey instead of beige color).
Eventually I found out Topre switches on the japanese HHKB keyboars (Happy Hacking Keyboard) and as I've got family in Japan, I had three HHKB Pro JP shipped to me (when family would come to visit).
I don't speak/type japanese but I dig that japanese version as a very narrow spacebar and hence more modifiers and modifiers that are easier to reach with the thumbs.
Been a happy camper since more than 10 years now.
So basically... Maybe I obsessed over it a bit but then I eventually "found" my keyboard and it's the HHKB Pro JP and found my switch: and my switch is Topre and nothing else.
For anyone on a similar search, I've been very happy with my Niz board that has capacitive switches claimed to be similar to the Topres:
https://www.nizkeyboard.com/products/niz-2019-new-x87-electr...
It's much quieter than the Cherry MX (brown) board I had previously, with a very light action.
My wife has been showing a little bit of interest in a “proper” keyboard for working from home.
I’m going to show her this and see if she likes any of them.
In general I find noise the unimportant part. I'm not listening to my keyboards (except my midi keyboards, and even then it isn't the physical keyboard it is what the sound engine it connects to does). Keyboard reviews focus on that because sound is something that can be objectively measured in a video. I tell by watching a video if I will like how a keyboard feels in my fingers.
Go for it, and please let me know what she decides
Hmmm. Someone tell the mynoise people. Having a sound ambience of a typing room might be awesome ? Or not ?
The Selectric sounds pretty nice. I should really modify one of mine to be used as a terminal one day.
On the old[0] MyNoise app, there's "Calm Office" which has generators for "Keyboards & Mouse"[1] and "Keyboards"[2].
There's also "Vintage Office" which has "Mechanical Keyboard"[3].
Both have a variety of other ambiences that could fill out "typing room" (especially if you made a multi-generator.)
But yeah, it could do with a bit more variety of "office" and "keyboard" generators.
[0] I dislike the new app's UI/UX, it doesn't support multi-generators, and there's no easy way to download all the generators you have access to. (You also have to pay again for lifetime access but that I'm fine with.)
[1] "thock"
[2] "clatter"
[3] kind of a watery thock?
Tons of ten-hour-long typing sound videos on YouTube.
As a software developer, I absolutely despise loud keyboard sounds that I didn’t produce myself. In an office setting, fast typists with loud mechanical keyboards are the absolute worst (thank God for AirPods)!
The fast typists who don't know how to use a mechanical keyboard, are the worst, that's true.
I always bought the non-clicky keyboards...
i like the sound when im pressing the buttons but i can't stand listening to them in a recording its horrible
I made (read: assembled) a lot of keyboards and tuned the sound to my liking, sometimes i would record the sound to share it with friends but the recordings always turned out horrible, not at all what I was hearing.
The frequency response of the mic probably has a lot to do with it; and unless you use stereo mics on a dummy head, the spatial effects won't be quite the same.
HHKB sounds nothing like mine. Weird to type on it and hear a totally different sound.
Model M sounds reasonably close, Unicomp Classic sounds very wrong.
The HHKB was a Niz Purple Hybrid as a Topre stand-in — flagged as a "proxy" in the methodology but the name was still HHKB, which was misleading. Swapped it for a real HHKB Pro Hybrid recording (CC0 sample from grcekh on Freesound).
Unicomp was outright broken, a single file mapped to every key, which is why it sounded very wrong. It now uses the bucklespring recording from the Model M entry, which is actually authentic because Unicomp builds these on the original IBM tooling. Both fixes are live now.
If you don't have a suitable recording just remove the entry. Reusing soundfiles doesn't help anyone and is misleading.
Really nice stuff. But the mobile ux is horrendous.
fixed it