What to call everything-but-the-switch noise?

[wendell]

I have some early-90s keyboards with clicky keys, but the one I can hear best from the other end of the house is a HHKB Lite. The membrane action itself makes practically no sound; it's the clack and rattle of the keys.

Switch sound gets a lot of discussion, but not so much the rest of it. It really ought to, though. The click of a switch gives audible verification of input, but creaks, clacks, and rattles occur without direct relation to keyswitch function. It is purely a distraction that needs to be minimized.

I thought if there were a common term for it, that would encourage discussion and indirectly influence manufacturers to pay more attention to reducing it.

Here are a few ideas, none of which I really like:
EBTS
clatter
rattle
resonance
R&R (rattle and resonance)
peripheral noise

[iMav]

AFAIC, "clack" is the appropriate term for the sound a key makes when bottoming out or when returning to the top position.

Check out these threads.

[itlnstln]

AFAIC, "clack" is the appropriate term for the sound a key makes when bottoming out or when returning to the top position.

Check out these threads.

This.

In GH common-language, "click" refers to intended, audible feedback from the switch itself; "clack," as iMav pointed out, refers to the noise created by the switch bottoming or topping out.  Other noises, like creaking, are referred to on an ad hoc basis.

[RoboKrikit]

The auto industry has the term NVH for noise, vibration, and harshness.  It doesn't imply that all noise is a bad thing; there is good and bad noise.

[wendell]

Well, "clack" doesn't quite cover creak and resonance, but it's clearly the established term. Question answered.

[iMav]

I third that "Clack" motion and henceforth have added it to the Wiki Start Here glossary.

FYI, "USB" is one of three valid answers for the registration question.  

(and I think BRS needs to be added to the glossary)

[iMav]

ADB and PS2. (lots of folks were putting that in and I was getting lots of email about registration issues...none since adding those two).

Buckling Rubber Sleeves

[woody]

Biologists use the term "Binary Nomenclature"

Haha, reminded me of the "Fantastic Mr. Fox" movie and instantly laughed.

[Findecanor]

I would add this definition:

Rattle - The noise from unintended collisions within the key/switch, most of all in a horizontal direction. If you sweep your fingers over the keys without depressing them, this is what you will hear. These are often caused by there being gaps in-between parts, such as between key cap and key stem or in-between plunger and shaft walls.

I have experienced both rubber domes and mechanicals with either high and low levels of rattle.
As to "resonance" - I would say that that is only a variable telling how much the noise is amplified.

However,  on the rubber dome that I am typing on now, most of the noise does not come from click (it is not clicky), clack (dampened by rubber) or from rattle (it is a good rubber dome), but from when the keys bounce back to the top after I have released them.
What would you call this unwanted noise?

[keyb_gr]

However,  on the rubber dome that I am typing on now, most of the noise does not come from click (it is not clicky), clack (dampened by rubber) or from rattle (it is a good rubber dome), but from when the keys bounce back to the top after I have released them.
What would you call this unwanted noise?

Top-out noise?

BTW, just about any "crisp"-feeling 'board is likely to have some of that. It's not possible to have a sudden onset of force on downstroke without a hard stop up there. The rest is moving mass vs. damping plus noise propagation.

Or did you mean something that occurs even before the key tops out? Like the flop-flop noise that the domes in my BTC make when restoring their shape?

BTW, there is another source for rattling, PCBs which aren't fixed perfectly. G80-3000 users might know this.

[2084]

Yea, I don't mind the clickyness of my blues at all, it's just the top-out ringy resonance noise which I don't like in my ears

[Pylon]

What about the sound some rubber domes make when the domes collapse?

[Findecanor]

What about the sound some rubber domes make when the domes collapse?

I think that that is something else that you hear than the rubber dome collapsing. Perhaps it is clack, rattle or noise from friction within the switch. I don't think that I have ever heard any noise from the dome itself.
As it happens, I have three types of rubber sheets of domes next to me that I have removed from keyboards (Keytronic, Fujitsu, Chicony) and when pressing a dome right next to my ear, I can hear no noise at all.

[wendell]

...on the rubber dome that I am typing on now, most of the noise does not come from click (it is not clicky), clack (dampened by rubber) or from rattle (it is a good rubber dome), but from when the keys bounce back to the top after I have released them.

Same with the HHKB Lite.

Well, iMav and itlnstln stated that "clack" is understood to cover both bottom-out and top-out. So, I'm willing to go along with that.

Playing with my keyboards here, it seems to me that top-out and rattle are mechanically the same thing.

You know...we haven't covered the noise it makes when you whack your neighbor with it.