Mechanical Keyboard Sound Isn't That Simple
Figure 1: I couldn't think of a more literal way to represent this article if I tried... Looking back just a few years ago, there’s no doubt that the huge influx of people that joined the hobby at the peak of the COVID pandemic were drawn to keyboards by way of YouTube, TikTok, and other audio-visual content platforms. Even as the output from these content creators has waned in recent months, their collective impact and legacy on the keyboard hobby is rather firmly etched in the history books. As a result of all of their sound tests, build logs, and opinion videos, the message is clear to any new person joining the hobby: mechanical keyboards are all about the sound. Thock this, clack that. Whether it’s keyboards, keycaps, or even singular switches, seemingly everyone new to the hobby meticulously pores over each component of their keyboard not in an attempt to figure out how it will feel in hand, but how it will sound as they’re furiously grinding their way out from...
Mar 27, 2024
Regardless, I look forward to getting my missing/misaligned caps sent out.
Maybe the statistics were proofread by the people that were in charge of quality control? ;-)
Also, the elephant in the room is yet to be addressed: how does one even end up with a kit that has a failure rate of 100 percent if there is any semblance of quality control? And what steps are being taken to assure the same thing doesn't happen again, e.g. in future drops?
We will be auto replacing the Colemak + Dvorak and International Kits because of the issues we've found.
"Anywho. I did the best I could with what I had. At the end they turned out pretty well, except for maybe orange. I believe the problem is with the pigment that is not dense enough and the keycaps turned out not intense as I thought. "
Will this round use a different orange than the first round?
I disagree that the above is "not being transparent" - it pretty clearly calls out how many people reported issues, and that two particular kits need to be re-printed. I'm proud that we're making progress in clearly communicating on this front based on community feedback. That said, it's a fair point that the above doesn't give the full context on the scale of the international and C-D issue. Here's some additional context: 7,727 items produced for 24 kits. 209 of those items were printed improperly (too bold/mis-alignment) in the 2 listed kits (international, C-D). Those kits are being re-made and the replacements are being sent to everyone impacted.
Lastly, we are making a couple improvements to our process that will help avoid the printing issues experienced with international and C-D kits in this run. The goal is to catch these issues as early in the process as possible, because even if they're caught once they hit Massdrop or our warehouse, our best option will be to send out the incorrect units and then send replacements. To try and catch any printing or alignment issues earlier, we're adding one new step and improving one of our existing steps to our QA process during production to check for exact size and alignment at the time of production across all kits.
It's good that you are making improvements to your QA protocols. What I can't get my head around though is how they could fail in the first place, and that's what worries me. Let's say the real story goes something like this: "We had to make the deadline before the Spring Festival, so we disregarded the normal QA procedure because there was no time. It would have been mostly fine, were it not for that stressed-out guy in sector 7g who mistakedly sent the wrong svg file because his boss was being an asshole and made him work 17 hour shifts during crunch." Would it really be that terrible to just say so, if that is the case? We don't even need all the gritty details.
I appriceate what Massdrop does, I really do. But the culture of keycap groupbuys is one where the people running things are, for the most part, quite transparent about what went wrong and why when issues arise. So far, there's really no information on why the issues arose. Maybe there is a non-disclosure clause in your contract with the manufacturer that prevents you from throwing them under the bus. But if that is the case, you could at least tell us that there are legal reasons for not giving the whole story.
Also, you don't really do yourselves any favours by re-running the drop before replacements have been sent out. I'm tempted to buy another set since the profile itself is awesome, but I'm also hesitant to throw more money your way before you've rectified the problems from the first drop. I'm sure there are a lot of other customers from the first run who share that sentiment.
It's very typical of you to open a new drop when there are people still with unresolved issues from the last drop. Nice.
Cause most of my keyboard (core/base part) is tilted to the left by lets say 10-15°? Function keys, mods are mostly okay-ish. Only couple F numbers is again a bit left, does that classifies as RMA-it? (Hah with pricing from EU, probably not lol.)
Also are there any sets that are actually printed straight? :D
That said, my replacement set have even worse alignment issues so I'm going to be contacting them again.
Massdrop - save yourselves the repeated postage costs and actually check these before they go out. If they're not close to the expected quality, I will keep RMA'ing them.
I think that Backspace key is R1 and Return key is R3. Right?
Only my F3 is like sore thumb and most of my letters are bit to the left (at least most are same way to the left).
Thank you!
I have not seen such an outreach, but really want to be reached out for that. Can you help?
Best,
/Patrick