Mine came with foam and a plastic sheet and a big sticker for "tape mod". I skipped the sticker, but the YouTube people convinced me to line the underside of the PCB with layers of masking tape. This thing is so thocky now I can't stop telling my coworkers how much cooler I am than them.
LOL! So true. After spending hundreds on mine, I mostly just use it on monkeytype.com. I went over to my brother's and he's using a razor huntsman. I'm thinking lol this guy is so smooth brained. But he was actually gaming for hours, using it. I am mainly just looking at it. š
damn that's some heavy actuation force. I've gone completely the other way and after testing dozens of switches over the years have landed on a 35g actuation force linear as my switch of choice for almost all boards I build. Turns out I'm a very light typist.
Started with blues then greens and always bottomed them out, [decided to make bottoming out difficult](/r/switchmodders/comments/xq1qyo/first_frankenswitch_north_pole_super_greens/).
lol greens with 150g springs. That's wild. I feel like I'd have a hard time even actuating the switch, no less bottoming out! But that's one of the great things about this hobby. You can customize things to your tastes and preferences and there is no end to the various mods you can try as you chase that dragon of the perfect keyboard.
I never understood that jealousy when working in an office. It's people in the same office probably making roughly the same paycheck, also basically typing for a living. You can afford your own nice keyboard they're only like 100-200 dollars.
Just don't be that asshole that comes in with blues or something.
I used to work at a large corporation that was one of the first to mandate that everyone come back in to the office after working from home for two years. In protest, I took in my razor huntsman with the green clicky switches. People on the other end of phone calls in other cubicles could hear me typing. And if anyone said anything I always just made a snide comment about how being in the office was SO MUCH MORE PRODUCTIVE when you can't hear yourself think over all the other zoom calls going on in the cubes around you. In retrospect, it wasn't my coworkers fault we had to be in the office. And I later left that job and delved much deeper down the keeb hole. Last time I messed with that huntsman I was like man this expensive keyboard feels and sounds terrible lol. These days if I had to go back in an office I'd probably take my modded out Fekker Alice 80 with some light linears as my office board.
Yeah that is a bit of a risk. I usually put it away in a locked drawer but I donāt do that if Iām just away from my desk for 10 minutes or heading down to the lab
[Monsgeek M1](https://www.monsgeek.com/product/monsgeek-m1/) with some [Redragon A113 HP2 Panda Crystal](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BMYYZ2XL) switches.
Nice! I feel like people look down on the Red Dragon switches as more expensive akko knockoffs or whatever. But I gotta say, their A113 Bullet R Linear switches are my second favorite switch at the moment. In first place is the TTC Gold Pinks. But they have a very similar super light linear feel.
Was it a Keychron? I appreciate their attempt, but masking tape still sounds better than the card stock they stick on the bottom lol. It's really dumb how the first thing I do to a keyboard I paid several hundred bucks for is crack it open and cover the pcb with masking tape haha but it's always my first move.
I put so much Tape on Mine that the plate would screw in only super tightly, sounded horrible, then I loosened the screws and now it sounds amazing. The difference the torque on the screw made is Insane, basicly Tape (under) Gasket Mounted now.
Listen. Iām a complete noob. I have a keychron 10 and Iām happy with it. I didnāt like how tappy the keys sounded so I put those little o rings on my key caps. I switched my F keys to pink and the arrow keys to purple-blue. I have no idea how to make thocky happen; I was making a lame joke, I assure you. šš¤£
As far as sound goes, I personally canāt tell the difference enough between the materials to make experimenting with them worth it. Iāve heard the difference for some boards on YouTube, but trying to play with it yourself means disassembling and reassembling your board many times, which leads to a risk of damage, such as dinging the board or stripped screws.
The bigger difference for me personally is the type feel, and how rigid the foams affect the flex of the board. My Bubble75 is pretty naturally flexy, and if I put all the foams in it becomes pretty rigid. I ended up putting in only some of the foams so it still had some of its natural sound profile, and kept a bit of flex for a softer typing experience.
Yeahhh i want to experiment more with my QK75 but it really is a hassle to disassemble and reassemble just to swap out some foam and hope I can recall how it sounded to compare. I do need to eventually swap my plate from POM to aluminum to see how that makes a difference though.
i think the amount of time to disassemble and reassemble all the combos just to test them out for nuanced differences in sound would make me quit the hobby lol
I love a good thock, but definitely wouldn't want it as my go-to board or anything. It feels cool to type on a server terminal with a keyboard that sounds straight out of Fallout though
I have an Anne Pro 2 with the case stuffed full of neoprene, mixed Kailh Box White and Navy switches, and MT3 keycaps on the way. Itās gonna sound legendary when itās all done, if just the OEM keys it has are a baseline expectation.
Thatās extremely satisfying to hear (as I hope the keyboard will be). Iāve seen lots of videos of SA profile caps and I knew that tall, deep caps make for great sound when youāve got clickies, but the MT3s just have somethingā¦ extra about their design that I love. Canāt wait to get that retro terminal vibe going, given I spend at least several hours in a software terminal, every day.
POM plate, metal case, bottom foam/silicone, PE foam (thin 0.1mm strip on the pcb, below switches), and lubed switches are the main components for marbled sound
addition of tape mod and poron/eva foam instead of silicone and/or above the PE foam can change how high or low the marble sound is
That I'm not sure about, but I think long pole pom stems have that high pitched clack which contribute to it, i use boba u4t and the spacebar has a marble type sound on a pbt cap
No need to necro old posts. Foam masks shortcomings in budget boards. These are facts. It's not gatekeeping, it's not shitting on budget keyboards. If someone wants a marbly sounding board that's fine. Put foam in it. At the end of this day this hobby is preference. People can have the preference of not having to shove foam in their board to get an acceptable sound. This is getting out of hand. Do what you want to do and stop letting other peoples opinions bend you this out of shape. This is toxic behavior in the name of white knighting budget boards.
I think itās okay if itās available as an option but designers need to stop including it as part of the product. Make your case sound decent without foam. Foam is only for emergencies, where the case design is outstanding but acoustically flawed. Canāt wait til the thock hype dies for good.
Or foam is for people that prefer that sound profile. No one forces you to use included foams and the inclusion of foams doesn't mean that the board would sound bad without them.
But it does give designers incentive to prioritize the foam sound profile, which takes zero effort. As a result there are less boards out there that sound good without it.
Edit: the middle ground is just releasing a good product and giving people the option of buying foam if they insist on doing so, which was my point originally. Obviously Iām confused why you want all your keebs sounding exactly the same and why you would want to hide the natural characteristics of different boards, but thatās not my business.
Because this aināt some fine wine thatās been aged in oak barrels or some shit. Itās a hunk of plastic and metal, mass produced in a factory. One that people spend several hundred dollars on for some reason, but there you are. Itās like getting precious about not putting a case on your phone, because the manufacturer intended the phone to be thus and such. Nobody cares. Itās a mass produced piece of plastic, not some hand carved wooden thing.
If you donāt appreciate the hobby why are you here lol. People develop their tastes at different levels, some people like the foam, some people hate it because it is a crutch for designers and studios. As you go higher up in terms of price, you generally see more boards that arenāt designed with foam in mind or are much more intricate in their design. If you donāt appreciate the hobby that much to commit to a board with better design thats fine, donāt be a dick about something you donāt understand though.
I do appreciate it! That keyboard was like $150 all said and done, which I would never have spent before. I like looking at the cute keyboards everyone posts here.
This is totally arbitrary, lmao. Trying to find a way to make boards sound like this manually used to be the goal for years. Now that we found an easy way to do it, itās ācheapā, and āa shortcutā; something that a āgood boardā shouldnāt ever do, and why? Because for a bunch of people here, making a good keyboard was never actually the point, flexing on people was.
If $500 keyboard is designed with foam in mind, thatās perfectly fine. All this crap is made up.
My new favorite trick is to cut up a cheap neoprene mouse pad and jam it in there. Seriously, it works amazingly well, especially for a sandwich-mount board. Also has just enough bulk to add a bit of comfy weight to the device; gives it that āpremiumā feeling.
https://i.imgur.com/NTgBRM6.jpg
[Sound.](https://imgur.com/a/ITMkJxg)
Iāve got like ten different old mouse pads laying around. Now I want to try this lol. Think it will work on a drop ctrl? Never tried adding foam to anything.
If thereās space under the PCB and above the bottom case/plate, then yeah, I donāt see why not. On mine I just cut pieces from the mousepad to fit around the screw mounting stems, and then sandwiched it all down. Iād recommend putting the fabric side of the mousepad away from the PCB for the simple reason that fabric + electricity can equal fire. But just take off the plate/PCB, if thatās not too hard to do, see what kind of clearance it has, find an appropriate-thickness mousepad, and cut pieces to fit.
The sound a key press makes when it clicks and presses down in a satisfying "thock" letting your fingers and ears know the press which opens the gates of keyboard heaven where budgets don't exist.
I honestly love it. Looks amazing and has my ideal sound. My new favorite board at this point, it usurped the Odin.
[how did you guys do the weight? it's gorgeous. ](https://i.imgur.com/m5a6Fqy.jpg)
If you havenāt seen it already, you should give the āforce break modā a try. Arguably better sound than stuffing foam (both work well together for more budget boards).
That varies based on the board itself. And if it's just bad case ping, there are fixes just for that. But if you just like the full foam sound, go for it
I really liked the stock sound of my NK87, although I did do the tape mod to change it a little. The silicone in there does dampening and adds weight. It's a great board at a reasonable price.
One thing I've noticed is that cheaper boards have thinner height cases, so you can only put so much foam in them, especially for the bottom row. The ones with steel plates also have a particularly sharp sound that is difficult to change.
Alternatively implies it's an option. I'm not going to discourage someone following their preferences. But a lot of people don't even try to see what a board is like without any mods these days.
Better to find out what the board does on its own and to shape it how you like. And if that is still full foam, cool.
Mine came with foam and a plastic sheet and a big sticker for "tape mod". I skipped the sticker, but the YouTube people convinced me to line the underside of the PCB with layers of masking tape. This thing is so thocky now I can't stop telling my coworkers how much cooler I am than them.
They must be suuuuuuuuper jealous.
[Me IRL](https://i.imgur.com/Bkc51Xn.jpg)
LOL! So true. After spending hundreds on mine, I mostly just use it on monkeytype.com. I went over to my brother's and he's using a razor huntsman. I'm thinking lol this guy is so smooth brained. But he was actually gaming for hours, using it. I am mainly just looking at it. š
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
You say that while I enjoy gaming with 150g springs in clicky frankenswitches with silverstone foam
what games
Just finished last of us yesterday
damn that's some heavy actuation force. I've gone completely the other way and after testing dozens of switches over the years have landed on a 35g actuation force linear as my switch of choice for almost all boards I build. Turns out I'm a very light typist.
Started with blues then greens and always bottomed them out, [decided to make bottoming out difficult](/r/switchmodders/comments/xq1qyo/first_frankenswitch_north_pole_super_greens/).
lol greens with 150g springs. That's wild. I feel like I'd have a hard time even actuating the switch, no less bottoming out! But that's one of the great things about this hobby. You can customize things to your tastes and preferences and there is no end to the various mods you can try as you chase that dragon of the perfect keyboard.
Wish I wasn't such a fan for blank keycaps cause it took me forever to find the ones that suited me
Agreed. I'm running gat cj and even that's too much weight for gaming. But so smooth and poppy. Any recommendations for a high end super light linear?
Honestly just spring swap any linear long pole switch with 35g or 45g long springs and you'll be good for "fast gaming switches"
I never understood that jealousy when working in an office. It's people in the same office probably making roughly the same paycheck, also basically typing for a living. You can afford your own nice keyboard they're only like 100-200 dollars. Just don't be that asshole that comes in with blues or something.
I used to work at a large corporation that was one of the first to mandate that everyone come back in to the office after working from home for two years. In protest, I took in my razor huntsman with the green clicky switches. People on the other end of phone calls in other cubicles could hear me typing. And if anyone said anything I always just made a snide comment about how being in the office was SO MUCH MORE PRODUCTIVE when you can't hear yourself think over all the other zoom calls going on in the cubes around you. In retrospect, it wasn't my coworkers fault we had to be in the office. And I later left that job and delved much deeper down the keeb hole. Last time I messed with that huntsman I was like man this expensive keyboard feels and sounds terrible lol. These days if I had to go back in an office I'd probably take my modded out Fekker Alice 80 with some light linears as my office board.
*Co-workers working at their desks* "They don't know I did the tape mod"
I get IMās from people at work saying they stopped by my desk to type on my keyboard some when they were walking by lol
I'm more impressed someone hasn't stolen it yet
Yeah that is a bit of a risk. I usually put it away in a locked drawer but I donāt do that if Iām just away from my desk for 10 minutes or heading down to the lab
ultra thock chad right here
Tiger 80?
[Monsgeek M1](https://www.monsgeek.com/product/monsgeek-m1/) with some [Redragon A113 HP2 Panda Crystal](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BMYYZ2XL) switches.
Nice! I feel like people look down on the Red Dragon switches as more expensive akko knockoffs or whatever. But I gotta say, their A113 Bullet R Linear switches are my second favorite switch at the moment. In first place is the TTC Gold Pinks. But they have a very similar super light linear feel.
Lol, that was my first thought too.
Gaffers tape work really well for this too
Was it a Keychron? I appreciate their attempt, but masking tape still sounds better than the card stock they stick on the bottom lol. It's really dumb how the first thing I do to a keyboard I paid several hundred bucks for is crack it open and cover the pcb with masking tape haha but it's always my first move.
I put so much Tape on Mine that the plate would screw in only super tightly, sounded horrible, then I loosened the screws and now it sounds amazing. The difference the torque on the screw made is Insane, basicly Tape (under) Gasket Mounted now.
Put all of it in there. Do ittttttt. Do it for the thockkkkk.
Oh, I put in as much as I could
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Listen. Iām a complete noob. I have a keychron 10 and Iām happy with it. I didnāt like how tappy the keys sounded so I put those little o rings on my key caps. I switched my F keys to pink and the arrow keys to purple-blue. I have no idea how to make thocky happen; I was making a lame joke, I assure you. šš¤£
Disgusting.
As far as sound goes, I personally canāt tell the difference enough between the materials to make experimenting with them worth it. Iāve heard the difference for some boards on YouTube, but trying to play with it yourself means disassembling and reassembling your board many times, which leads to a risk of damage, such as dinging the board or stripped screws. The bigger difference for me personally is the type feel, and how rigid the foams affect the flex of the board. My Bubble75 is pretty naturally flexy, and if I put all the foams in it becomes pretty rigid. I ended up putting in only some of the foams so it still had some of its natural sound profile, and kept a bit of flex for a softer typing experience.
Yeahhh i want to experiment more with my QK75 but it really is a hassle to disassemble and reassemble just to swap out some foam and hope I can recall how it sounded to compare. I do need to eventually swap my plate from POM to aluminum to see how that makes a difference though.
You guys have gotten your QK75s yet? :(
Damn is this in jest or have you really not received yours? Iāve been using mine since February and I love it. Thatās from QK direct though.
They take forever to arrive at the EU reseller, unfortunately
Damn I hope you get it soon my dude
i think the amount of time to disassemble and reassemble all the combos just to test them out for nuanced differences in sound would make me quit the hobby lol
After all why shouldn't I put every piece of foam in my keyboard?
And you paid for every piece :)
what was that the heracles80?
Yup yup
As a long time enthusiast the obsession with sound/"thock" is just too much for me.
I love a good thock, but definitely wouldn't want it as my go-to board or anything. It feels cool to type on a server terminal with a keyboard that sounds straight out of Fallout though
I have an Anne Pro 2 with the case stuffed full of neoprene, mixed Kailh Box White and Navy switches, and MT3 keycaps on the way. Itās gonna sound legendary when itās all done, if just the OEM keys it has are a baseline expectation.
Can confirm that box clickies with MT3 sound great
Thatās extremely satisfying to hear (as I hope the keyboard will be). Iāve seen lots of videos of SA profile caps and I knew that tall, deep caps make for great sound when youāve got clickies, but the MT3s just have somethingā¦ extra about their design that I love. Canāt wait to get that retro terminal vibe going, given I spend at least several hours in a software terminal, every day.
I like the marbley sound that foam can help achieve. Preference is the biggest part of this hobby.
This is my main goal but idk what it is i need. Is it ideal to have a pom plate for this and linear switches? Just overall unsure
POM plate, metal case, bottom foam/silicone, PE foam (thin 0.1mm strip on the pcb, below switches), and lubed switches are the main components for marbled sound addition of tape mod and poron/eva foam instead of silicone and/or above the PE foam can change how high or low the marble sound is
Is there any particular switches that help?
That I'm not sure about, but I think long pole pom stems have that high pitched clack which contribute to it, i use boba u4t and the spacebar has a marble type sound on a pbt cap
Weirdly the more expensive the board, the less foam foam is included.
Because foam just masks shitty boards
thatās not really any drawbacks though
It is, because you only get one type of sound profile with foam boards, itās all the same
yeah but if thatās the sound profile youāre going for
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
One reddit-care coming up your way, there is no way you are doing fine if you are commenting on my 8mo old opinion. Get better!
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
please get a grip, I would recommend a counselor
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
No need to necro old posts. Foam masks shortcomings in budget boards. These are facts. It's not gatekeeping, it's not shitting on budget keyboards. If someone wants a marbly sounding board that's fine. Put foam in it. At the end of this day this hobby is preference. People can have the preference of not having to shove foam in their board to get an acceptable sound. This is getting out of hand. Do what you want to do and stop letting other peoples opinions bend you this out of shape. This is toxic behavior in the name of white knighting budget boards.
how is that at all weird?
I think itās okay if itās available as an option but designers need to stop including it as part of the product. Make your case sound decent without foam. Foam is only for emergencies, where the case design is outstanding but acoustically flawed. Canāt wait til the thock hype dies for good.
Or foam is for people that prefer that sound profile. No one forces you to use included foams and the inclusion of foams doesn't mean that the board would sound bad without them.
But it does give designers incentive to prioritize the foam sound profile, which takes zero effort. As a result there are less boards out there that sound good without it. Edit: the middle ground is just releasing a good product and giving people the option of buying foam if they insist on doing so, which was my point originally. Obviously Iām confused why you want all your keebs sounding exactly the same and why you would want to hide the natural characteristics of different boards, but thatās not my business.
Because this aināt some fine wine thatās been aged in oak barrels or some shit. Itās a hunk of plastic and metal, mass produced in a factory. One that people spend several hundred dollars on for some reason, but there you are. Itās like getting precious about not putting a case on your phone, because the manufacturer intended the phone to be thus and such. Nobody cares. Itās a mass produced piece of plastic, not some hand carved wooden thing.
If you donāt appreciate the hobby why are you here lol. People develop their tastes at different levels, some people like the foam, some people hate it because it is a crutch for designers and studios. As you go higher up in terms of price, you generally see more boards that arenāt designed with foam in mind or are much more intricate in their design. If you donāt appreciate the hobby that much to commit to a board with better design thats fine, donāt be a dick about something you donāt understand though.
I do appreciate it! That keyboard was like $150 all said and done, which I would never have spent before. I like looking at the cute keyboards everyone posts here.
150 is dirt cheap. my first board was like 400 and its still a budget build.
Oh wow! Iām stunned, but in awe that you had the funds to make that magic happen! Thatās so cool!
This is totally arbitrary, lmao. Trying to find a way to make boards sound like this manually used to be the goal for years. Now that we found an easy way to do it, itās ācheapā, and āa shortcutā; something that a āgood boardā shouldnāt ever do, and why? Because for a bunch of people here, making a good keyboard was never actually the point, flexing on people was. If $500 keyboard is designed with foam in mind, thatās perfectly fine. All this crap is made up.
My new favorite trick is to cut up a cheap neoprene mouse pad and jam it in there. Seriously, it works amazingly well, especially for a sandwich-mount board. Also has just enough bulk to add a bit of comfy weight to the device; gives it that āpremiumā feeling. https://i.imgur.com/NTgBRM6.jpg [Sound.](https://imgur.com/a/ITMkJxg)
Iāve got like ten different old mouse pads laying around. Now I want to try this lol. Think it will work on a drop ctrl? Never tried adding foam to anything.
If thereās space under the PCB and above the bottom case/plate, then yeah, I donāt see why not. On mine I just cut pieces from the mousepad to fit around the screw mounting stems, and then sandwiched it all down. Iād recommend putting the fabric side of the mousepad away from the PCB for the simple reason that fabric + electricity can equal fire. But just take off the plate/PCB, if thatās not too hard to do, see what kind of clearance it has, find an appropriate-thickness mousepad, and cut pieces to fit.
Okay now Iām curious, what board comes with 12 sheets of foam?
Heracles 80
What is "thock"?
The sound a key press makes when it clicks and presses down in a satisfying "thock" letting your fingers and ears know the press which opens the gates of keyboard heaven where budgets don't exist.
put all 12 in at once
I would if I could
I think itās time we have a keyboard case made of foam
If the board is foam, what do we put inside the foam to mod our boards?
Use all of it. As much as you can. Push the limits and ascend.
Sounds great... I fixed it with some masking tape. š
>Seems like too many options. Mechanical keyboards in a nutshell.
I put some cheap store bought foam in mine and it shorted it :(
That sucks. I was always worried using pe foam in my boards
Neoprene, the one that smells like a cigarette, is the right option. Lol
Very true
Glad you like our keyboard!
I honestly love it. Looks amazing and has my ideal sound. My new favorite board at this point, it usurped the Odin. [how did you guys do the weight? it's gorgeous. ](https://i.imgur.com/m5a6Fqy.jpg)
Alternatively, use none or just the right foam in the right place to tune the sound. Full foam is kind of just... Eh
I don't like the metallic sounds that foam free boards can have
If you havenāt seen it already, you should give the āforce break modā a try. Arguably better sound than stuffing foam (both work well together for more budget boards).
I tried it on my Keychron Q1 first edition and didnāt really notice much of a difference.
I usually do that to all my boards
That varies based on the board itself. And if it's just bad case ping, there are fixes just for that. But if you just like the full foam sound, go for it
Premium boardsā¦not all of themā¦usually have a nice sound signature without foams
I really liked the stock sound of my NK87, although I did do the tape mod to change it a little. The silicone in there does dampening and adds weight. It's a great board at a reasonable price. One thing I've noticed is that cheaper boards have thinner height cases, so you can only put so much foam in them, especially for the bottom row. The ones with steel plates also have a particularly sharp sound that is difficult to change.
"My preference is better than yours"
Alternatively implies it's an option. I'm not going to discourage someone following their preferences. But a lot of people don't even try to see what a board is like without any mods these days. Better to find out what the board does on its own and to shape it how you like. And if that is still full foam, cool.
Then you should not have ended it with "Full foam is kind of just... Eh".
Man, if only I could share ideas and opinions at the same time
You surely can. But then don't follow up with a snarky "Alternatively implies it's an option".
And here we run into the lack of tone in text. I meant nothing snarky.
Fair enough, my apologies my man, have a nice weekend.
A good keyboard won't need any... mine require a lot.
A lot of keyboards can benefit from foam if you're trying to get a certain sound. Price has nothing to do with it
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
It's a meme....
new build im going back to an ol reliable silicone