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
If you're willing to entertain bulky keyboard options, the Matias Ergo Pro is a pretty good one to look at. It too has some odd sized keys, but it feels way better to me. The only issue is that the original batch of Ergo Pros had some serious quality control issues. I don't know how the current batch is holding up. I have one from the first batch and mine is totally fine, but I had to resolder a few switches and replace a switch to get it to stop repeating on me.
In other words, it's an ALPS board and has ALPS issues, but it's really solid.
I'm also extremely disappointed they didn't sculpt the Shift and right-Option keys to better tactilely isolate the arrow set. And, yes, it's a lot to ask, but asking Mac users to adapt to the Kinesis way of managing macOS feature keys on the F row after two-plus decades of knowing where the fn media, Expose, Mission Control, etc., keys are, is just another stab at mismatched ugliness; if you choose the Mac layout, you have to move your keys and then the printing doesn't match.
This is before we disagree with each other about the horrifying slick texture of the stock keys, never mind the complete lack of sculpting and row-heights; you may prefer an entire keyboard of R3, but I'm old school, I guess, and like my rows and groups in varied heights for better blind targeting.
So, yeah, I had enough hope that they'd rapidly improve their firmware on this young edition of an already established lineup, and at least include a Mac Eject token; so I ordered a custom $90 Mac-inspired keyset — based on the classic 110 typeface, but optimized for LED backlights — from MaxKeyboards; but of course they don't have an Edge template, so I had to order five more individual custom keys at $7-12 a pop to round it out; and then, because what the hell, right? I ordered their $15 R4 Mac media keys to cover up the aforementioned hideous macro keys; but, that’s not they end of it, because you know you’re going to want to order a few more pricey one-offs once you decide how you’re going to finally configure this new layout to your liking.
I mean, if you're going to commit to learning a new, ultra-compressed layout that is different than the other split ergo you've been using for over twenty years, you may as well go all in, n'est-ce pas?
And you even resign yourself to yet more disappointment when you realize why they printed the stock keycaps in such an ugly, shitty compressed manner on the top center of every keycap, and added white top-print on the lower half of the F keys; the LEDs aren't lensed like other $100 boards that can illuminate the bottom and fronts of your custom keycaps; so you get to live with half-lit keys, wondering if you can mod the board to add an additional LED under the most offensive keys, or if you’re going to go back and redesign your key and give MaxKeyboards even more money.
And, then, oh my, then you *FINALLY* start trying to really program it, and you're driven insane by how long it takes the ludicrously slow V-drive to mount (seriously, is this thing an RS-232 serial connection? My cheapest, oldest, ancient 8MB USB 1.1 thumb drive mounts ten times faster), and then *at least* another 30-60 seconds for the Mac layout app to bounce 100x in the Dock and to actually load (because they couldn't be bothered to create a parallel local editor method that merely syncs the config files) — and, just to make the whole experience truly special, you have to load and unload the V-drive to test any changes on any keys, despite the claim that is only the case for the Macro keys; and that a board refresh will let you test any changed, saved config file with the V-drive mounted. Nope. Just nope.
Then you discover that the Edge starts picking up random settings for keys you didn't even try to program, like an Escape key suddenly producing five up/downstrokes for no apparent reason; or your R key just doesn’t produce an R anymore. Further, you start finding that the Refresh function, even with V-drive dismounted, doesn't really always refresh, so you have to crawl under your desk to unplug/plug the cord first to get it to reset (mostly); or you might even have to hard-reset the board (you did back up your config files, first, right?) So you buy a $30 USB hub with switches and mount it to your keyboard tray so you can either toggle power or perform a hard reset from your chair every time the board borks for no obvious reason, including when you haven’t touched a config file or even switched layouts for days.
Eventually you decide you just cannot stand the multi-minutes round trip cycle to make one tiny adjustment to a macro, so you spend time to build your own syntax editing library so you can just use BBEdit and a triggered shell script to make edits and sync without opening the terrible GUI.
Once you finally have a comfortable editing environment, and keys that you can (begin to) physically fly on without looking at them, you quickly discover that the board isn't as programmable as you were led to believe; it can't even do modifier chording, so you also then quickly realize your fantasy of having a truly portable keyboard for macOS, Windows, and Linux, that will speed up your work on guest machines that you aren't allowed or can't spare the time to add Karabiner and BTT, and equivalent keystroke modifier utilities to and configure those, as well, is just that: a fantasy.
But, hey, on the bright side, Kinesis Support is super quick to answer emails, even on weekends, to offer apologies and lame workarounds for a $200 board that could so easily be great.
Assuming, of course, you are willing to further forgive the cheap, plastic, bigger than a battleship chassis, that, despite its crazy weight, won’t stay put, so now you have to apply friction pads to it, as well; and the extra bulk is just enough to put your other peripherals just that much further away from your hands, requiring even more muscle memory adjustments.
So one is left to wonder if one can get a good price for it on eBay, and whether or not the custom keys can be salvaged on another board, or if that is still more lost investment.
Hence my query above; that layout and slim chassis look like what I want, save for missing F keys. If I could find a pair of single row, eight-ten key macro strips that could be programmed as F/macOS Feature keys, I might learn live with at four-piece keyboard (plus external ten-key).
Cheers
Frederico
RE the Edge: see above; here's an image of the modified keys and my (forever work in progress) layout. Two Marble Mouse, Magic Trackpad 2, and cheapass LED tenkey with fake Browns and too much light leakage. I'm not happy with the media keys; waiting to see if I keep the board to redesign them.
I'm not a function key user, so the weird split in the function keys doesn't bother me, but I could see how that would drive someone crazy. Have you considered using a key binder app to use a modifier key to activate a function key when one of the numbers are pressed? That might address your issues if the function keys are what's holding you up.
Have you tried an Ergodox? That is probably my favorite split keyboard form factor, but it's a little hard on the thumbs and it's a keyboard that I can only use when I know I'm not going to be using other keyboards often. Once I get used to the ortholinear layout, I find myself tapping in between keys when I have to go back to a standard layout. I developed some strategies that allow me to be less clumsy when going back and forth, but utilizing an Ergodox or any ortholinear takes commitment.
Damn, that's some crazy monitor action you have going on there! How big is each one? I gave multiple screens a try before, but I never use more than one screen effectively. The other ones usually just sit there doing nothing, but I am heavy user of screen spaces and swap back and forth between spaces constantly.
That's three 27" LG 4K on the bottom; three AOC 1440p on top. I kinda don't need them all anymore, as my work has changed; the uppers were used primarily for dashboard and video; but, hey, I still make use of all of them; super nice being able to view background information at a glance without being forced to switch windows or spaces. I still do a lot of coparative work where I need to see a lot of pages/windows/images at once, while working on an active main stage/canvas/page.
My concern with F-keys via modifiers is two-fold: one, muscle memory just wants to leap to a perfectly aligned Function row (F1 above numeric 1, etc; so even the Edge already fails by having shifted it by one spacing compared to what I was most accustomed too); and chording a modifier with even the numeric row has already become a challenge (Command-n is far easier than Control-n, but I'm even losing that.); so marrying a board that requires a modifier to gain an F-Fey makes me nervous.
The Edge excited me, because my newfound clumsiness can still quite easily drop a thumb on a modifier on either the left or right hand mods, and then my ring or pinky fingers of the same hand can surprisingly easily find targets outside the Shift columns. My plan for the Edge was to macro the shit out of the eight "H-keys", and use one of the three standard modifiers (Command, Option, Control) to effect a two-digit action, rather than increasingly difficult three- and four-digit chords. After struggling on and off for weeks trying to make these chords work, I was flabbergasted to learn they took a lazy, cheapskate approach to the PCB design, and the H-keys are just a glorified set of Mouse Buttons jammed on the same chassis. Further, the Edge is incapable or assigning more than one modifier key to a single key, so you can’t even build your own pseudo-Hyper/Super/Meta keys. Massive oversight.
It's also a nightmare to *quickly* program and test a single key, and I find that changing one key might bork the programming on the rest of the board, requiring at a minimum, numerous refresh actions, and too frequently both soft and hard resets and starting over. The frustrations of trying to discover what I need to program while I create, and not being able to do so without6 ruining my concentration for my actual project is at times infuriating.
Worst of all, Kinesis doesn’t really give a shit; they just say I’m trying to use the board beyond its intent, and I’m welcome to dump it for a loss on eBay. For a company that was once all about addressing ergonomics and disabilities, they’ve fallen into a lazy place.
I'm into the Edge now for nearly $400, including custom keys and an external Numpad (which I'm still seeking to also replace with something that doesn’t suck), and, whether it's the Edge, or another similar compact board, I'm pretty certain I am going to require a traditional Inverted-T arrow and Nav cluster (I'm talking to a guy on etsy now who's able to build one for me that I can place to my right).
Another $300-$500 thrown at a completely unknown company and as-yet untouchable piece of vaporware that's still 3-6 months out isn't terribly soothing. I’m also pretty set on having backlit keys after all these decades of not needing them; my vision has become sensitive/poor, as well, and I need to work with less ambient light, so on those occasions when I lose touch memory and need to realign my brain with the characters I am indeed appreciating the LED-backlit keys.
But I'm keeping my eye on the UHK, and thanks for keeping it in my periphery. Oh, hey, I can’t discern if I can buy it with or optionally install my own backlit switches; it doesn’t appear to be the case; so you know?
Unlike you, my right hand is on my mouse much of the time and I rarely bother to learn any more keyboard shortcuts than I need to know because I have to use so many programs that I've given up on doing that except for a few things that are simply too cumbersome to do with a mouse. Instead, I've learned to use very macro heavy pointer devices. I do a lot of things with mouse macros that people do with keyboard macros like selecting the next/previous word, deleting the whole line, skipping to the next match, jumping to the end of the document, and so forth.
The lowest button count on my pointer devices is five buttons, but I need at least 7 to be comfortable. My favorite is my Roccat Tyon with 14 buttons that expands up to 25 if you use the layer button to access secondary functions.
Regarding your issues with getting keyboards like the Edge to give you the macros that you need... are you a Mac user? If you are, have you tried Keyboard Maestro? I use that program to do a lot of custom macros. Most of my macros are done in that software so I have them no matter which keyboard I'm using at the time. I'll usually continue to keep a handful of macros programmed directly into the keyboard because I just find there are few that seem to work more smoothly that way, but most of the time, they work just fine being emulated in a software layer.
And if you don't want it assembled you can request the kit only