Unusual Keyboard Pet Peeves

Bad versus good is subjective. My point was that sound tests (especially the ones on YouTube) have no value as objective measures of the sound attributes of a keyboard. Without a series of controls, and a consistent process you can’t get results that can be objectively compared.

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I don’t think so. I think they intend it as a relative measure of the volume.

If it’s only being used to sync the audio and video, then it should be removed after the sync is performed, and not left in.

Ye, u use it to know in what ballpark the volume is

It’s a really dumb measure of volume if they are using a clap or a mouse click.

Honestly I think it just comes down to laziness in editing, as well as clapping/snapping before typing basically being a meme now.

At least back or in my day, everyone did it because we all sucked at editing :man_shrugging:

Maybe you all need it for volume reference lol

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Well, I get it being a meme with some of the folks on YouTube (especially Shoobs with his Gawr Gura “Ah” sample). But some of these people are putting a ton of work into color grading and editing their videos very carefully…I just really don’t see them as either being lazy, or doing it for the meme.

I wish I could remember who at the moment; someone is working on such a device for capturing consistent sound recordings of individual switches. Even then the main utility would be comparing the recordings to each-other in a relative way, not so much identifying a sound one likes and could expect in their own keeb.

Perhaps this video from The Board Podcast? Switch Sound Tester - Part 1- Prototyping - YouTube

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That’s the one!

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Ticking. Nuff’ said.

I’ll have to watch the video. I went through the mental exercise of coming up with some design ideas, but decided that it was another one of those projects that was (a) well outside of my knowledge / skillset (although I have the feeling that it’s not too far outside that I couldn’t develop the skills if I wanted), (b) was going to take a lot of time (months and months of work), (c) was going to be quite a money sink, and (d) wasn’t something that I really felt compelled to pursue in a serious manner.

If anything, i was thinking that it wouldn’t be too difficult to do a partial implementation, and just accept that there were limitations to it… That’s still rolling around in the back of my mind.

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I dunno if I’d say is usual, but excluding numpad from base makes my jaw tighten. Seeing numpad excluded entirely just makes me want to rage.

Trigger warning

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Maybe people in Poland don’t use numpads. OH wait… it’s not Polish, it’s polish. Gotcha.

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I made the same polish-Polish mistake at first. What about this is Polish?

Miners not minors!

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Similar issue that’s getting on my nerves recently: key cap set listings that tell you it has X number of keycaps, but doesn’t have an image of all the all the key caps included in the set along with the rank numbers for the key caps.

This is happening more and more frequently too… I recently ordered a key cap set believing that it had the R4 versions of some of the navigation cluster keys that I use on my keyboard, only to have the set have R1 or R2 versions of those keys instead. When I went back and looked, I realized the image of the key cap set wasn’t labeled…grrrrrrrrrr…

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“Flex” Why would you want your keyboard to deliberately feel flimsy (and inevitably crack solder joints and traces over time)?

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I’ve been thinking the same thing seeing some of these PCB’s with flex cuts in them.

I get wanting to have some give in your keyboard – something like a gasket mount. But seriously, some of these recent boards I have a feeling are going to fail within a year if they are used all the time.

So far my experience with “flex” is akin to suspension on a vehicle, or maybe fat tires on a bike; more taking the edge off than actual bouncing around. This has also been at the more minimal end of things; I do have a board coming in a bit that’s got flex cuts all over the place, purely out of curiosity to see what it’s like and how long it lasts.

I do get a kick out of this;

When I first got into keebs, all the reviews I watched mentioned flex - but as a possible indicator of poor quality. That is, they were talking about how much the entire thing would give when you try to twist each end in opposite directions. IIRC the venerable Thomas calls this “deck flex”.

These days “flex” is of course all about how much give there is in this or that part of the keyboard in terms of the typing experience - whether it be gaskets, mounting tabs, a wobbly plate, or the aforementioned cuts. I’m wanting to say the first flex cuts I saw mostly affected the PCB at or near the mounting points, but these days there are plenty of boards with each individual row having long cuts from one end to the other. Some are even being made of a thinner material to further flex-ify the experience.

Even in those extreme cases, I have a feeling it will be closer to tapping on a somewhat loose drum rather than bouncing on a trampoline, but hey - they’re gonna keep going until they go to far - just not sure if they’re already there yet or not. :stuck_out_tongue:

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I am seeing these plate-less, gasket mounted PCB’s with flex cuts. I believe that is a bridge too far, and people will find quickly that the solder joints will start to fail from their PCBs flexing too much…

Shoob’s Glacier 80 Review is an example of where I think this is going too far.

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given that a majority of keyboard users don’t use the numpad, I personally love to see numpad get dropped from base kit, I’d rather not buy like 15 keys I don’t need when they can just be their own kit. its not like they’re getting rid of numpad all together.

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Being a ‘sound’ guy, keyboard ‘flex’ to me is a hype. It makes sound flatter like too much padding does, leaving my ears well short of wanting more. That leaves change in feel but I have not yet found it pleasing either.

All I’m really looking for in a board is clean pleasing sound and less harsh bottom-out. Gaskets help enough with the hash bottom-out and their negative effect on sound has so far has been countered with taping mod so I’m good without flex.

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