Mechanical Keyboard Sounds – A listening Museum

# The Listening Museum — 36 Keyboards, Sound-Mapped Source: [https://sheets.works/data-viz/keyboard-sounds](https://sheets.works/data-viz/keyboard-sounds) The Data Drop · \#049 ## The*Listening* Museum\. 36 mechanical keyboards and switches, curated and sound\-mapped\. From IBM Model M \(1985\) to Topre to thocky modern customs\. Click any card, type on your real keyboard, hear it as if it were on your desk\. 1 Click a**keyboard card**,it expands with full details\. 2 Type on your**real keyboard**,every key plays that sound\. 3 Read the**anatomy**\. Housing, stem, spring, and why it sounds like it does\. Methodology ## A note before you flame us\. Every audio sample on this page comes from the open\-source mechanical keyboard community\. None of these were recorded by us\. We are the curator, not the field recordist\. As[ThereminGoat has argued](https://www.theremingoat.com/blog/what-the-thock-is-clack-a-discussion-on-switch-sound), sound tests are inherently limited: microphone, room, host board, keycap set, codec, and your speakers all color the result\.**You are never hearing "the keyboard",you are hearing one recording of one build, played through one chain\.**Treat this as a listening museum, not a buying guide\. Some entries share recordings or are paired on purpose\. "Alt build" entries are a separate field recording of the same switch in a different host board and mic chain,listen to these side\-by\-side with the standard entry to hear how much of a "switch sound" is actually plate, case, mic, and room\. Don\\'t read loudness differences between paired entries as meaningful: that\\'s recording variance, not typing pressure\. The Unicomp Classic uses the same bucklespring recording as the IBM Model M because Unicomp still builds these on the original IBM tooling\. All audio is sourced from[Mechvibes](https://mechvibes.com/)\(community library, MIT app\),[Bucklespring](https://github.com/zevv/bucklespring)\(GPL\-2\.0, IBM Model M\),[grcekh on Freesound](https://freesound.org/people/grcekh/sounds/546033/)\(CC0, HHKB Pro Hybrid\),[keyboardsounds](https://github.com/nathan-fiscaletti/keyboardsounds)\(GPL\-3\.0\),[Monkeytype](https://github.com/monkeytypegame/monkeytype)\(GPL\-3\.0\),[keyBeats](https://github.com/YugBhanushali/keyBeats)\(MIT\),[daktilo](https://github.com/orhun/daktilo)\(MIT\),[wayclick](https://github.com/dusklinux/wayclick_soundpacks), and[keebsound](https://github.com/sillyfatcat/keebsound)\. If you are an audio author and want attribution corrected or your sample removed, email akash@sheets\.works\. The Data Drop ## One*interactive*story, every other week\. Built like this\. Quiet inbox\. No spam\. Unsubscribe one click\.