PICK A PART, THEN AN OPTION · TYPE ANY LETTER TO HEAR THE BOARD
THOCK
THE SOUND BENCH · MECHANICAL KEYBOARD ESSENTIALS
A keyboard makes noise because small hard things hit other small hard things
inside a box. Change the things, change the box, change the noise. Here is a
written brief for a sound. Build the board that makes it.
1
Every press is two impacts. The stem hits the housing going down — that is bottom-out. It hits the top again on release — that is top-out, and it is what makes a board sound clacky when you let go.
2
The case is a resonator. Aluminium rings high and holds it. Polycarbonate is rounder and shorter. Wood damps almost immediately. The mount decides how much of the plate's energy ever reaches the case at all.
3
Read the two plots. The bars are energy by frequency band. Thock leans left with a fast decay. Clack leans right with a long tail. Ping is one narrow spike near 3 kHz that will not stop.
4
Foam is not a cure-all. It kills the air resonance inside the case, which is what hollowness is. It does almost nothing to a singing spring, and enough of it will leave you with a dead board.
DRAG orbit the bench TYPE any letter to hear a press 1–7 pick a part ← → change the option A A/B the target T typing test ENTER submit R restart