White vs Green

[Snipeye]

So, the good news: I got my dad into mechanical keyboards.

The bad news: I got my dad into mechanical keyboards.


I'm currently on a CODE with clears, and I enjoy it - it definitely doesn't have as much tactility (that's a word?  My browser isn't giving me a red squiggly line, so... I guess I'll roll with it) as my complex orange alps did, but it sure is a lot more reliable than my 20-year-old complex orange alps.  The backlight is nice, too.  I'm looking for a keyboard with the same or more tactility (gunna use that word everywhere) than my alps, and it comes down to greens or whites.  I've looked them up, and it seems that whites are supposed to be a little quieter, which is a plus, but it also looks like the white is a little... slower?  My dad is a pianist of 40 something years, and types around 120WPM on average, so I don't want the keyboard to hold him up.  I'd like to hear opinions of the pros and cons of both greens and whites, and the best boards you've had them on (that is comes default, not quite up to soldering ridiculous quantities yet) (preferably with a semi-standard keycap set so I can replace any windows keys, because this will be used on a mac.)

Thanks!

[Defect]

For tactility: I've found that thick pbt + clears (panda clears specifically) gives me the most tactility, especially on the snappy upstroke.

For Greens vs White:
Greens are pretty much Blues with a black spring.  I have only 10 white switches, and only 4 are on a board.  I do not see a difference in speed when comparing greens and whites.  Whites are somehow quieter (one of my white switches is actually just as loud as the greens I have...defective maybe?).  Not sure if this kind of opinion helps with what you are looking for.

Still not sure what causes the quieter click in whites compared to greens/blues.  Possibly plastic type?  I have put small amounts of lube on blues before to quiet the click.  Hard to get the right amount of lube on there without ruining the click mechanism.

Take a look at buckling spring boards.  Model M's are great and I have 0 complaints with the Unicomp I bought.  Love buckling springs.  But they're loud and 2KRO only.

[Snipeye]

Thanks for the input, Defect - I find I prefer the tactility to be during the downstroke, as my fingers often leave the keys fairly rapidly - I don't pay much attention to the upstroke.  Are whites and greens more downstroke-tactile that panda clears?

[nubbinator]

Whites - incredibly inconsistent in feel and sound.  When you get good ones, they're awesome.  Unfortunately, you're pretty much guaranteed high variability with 10-20% of them to be "bad".

Greens - too heavy, IMO, and this is someone who loves Blacks and Ghost Blacks. 

Personally, if you want tactility, I'd go for Clears or one of the various permutations of Clears.  I'm partial to 67g Clears.  Alternatively, you could get something sexy like a Model F AT or something with Blue Alps.

[Defect]

With heavier spring generally you lose tactility.
With thick pbt and clears the reverse is true, especially in that the upstroke is very snappy.

Blues with 45 cherry spring are more tactile than blues with 80 cherry spring (greens).

Modded clears are more tactile than blues, especially on the upstroke (very nice feeling)

[jacobolus]

You won’t find Cherry MX switches which are as tactile as your orange Alps switches. Have you considered trying one of Matias’s keyboards, such as http://matias.ca/minitactilepro/mac/ or http://matias.ca/laptoppro/mac/ ?

[Snipeye]

I've seen the Matais boards, but I'm not much a fan of the aesthetics.  So, I hear that modded clears are more tactile than blues, and that whites are inconsistent/occasionally bad - how to greens compare in tactility to clears, and to complex orange alps?  I'm really not at all worried about actuation force being too high - as a pianist of 12 years (and my father is a pianist of 40) we both have exceptionally strong fingers.

[jacobolus]

MX clear is the closest you’re going to get to orange Alps, but it’s a bit different sort of “tactile”: The Alps switch has a definite point nearish to the top–middle of the keypress at which the force drops dramatically, and then there’s a substantial distance where the force is very low, before it picks back up a bit at the end. All MX switches have basically linear force increase from the top to the bottom of the keypresss, with the addition of a sort of “speed bump” feeling at the actuation point. Even in MX clear switches, the predominant feeling is still sort of “linear with a speed bump”, just the bump gets bigger.

If you swap in a very light weight spring (e.g. from a brown or red MX switch) to a clear switch, then you increase the effect of the plastic bump relative to the spring. Add lubricant to make the plastic-on-plastic friction a bit less objectionably “scratchy”. This “lubed ergo clear” is something that gets you about as tactile an experience as you can find with MX switches.

But even that still won’t get quite the same kind of feel you get from an Alps switch, where the extra resistance near the top comes from a metal leaf rather than a little plastic bump.

[Razor Lotus]

Heard somewhere that whites are quieter cause they are pre lubed by cherry. Not sure how true that is and how lubing would affect the sound. I have whites and greens on a switch sampler now and while I think green has more tactility than whites, I personally prefer the whites more overall.

also, I think clears has more tactility than the clicky ones like green and whites