Synthesized or recorded keyboard sounds?

Updated October 25, 2026

A recorded pack is a set of audio files made by pressing a real keyboard's keys in front of a microphone; a synthesized pack is computed from a model of the switch, keycap, plate and case. Recordings sound like one real board; synthesis can be tuned and can make sounds no board makes. Klack and Kiiwi record; Teclo synthesizes.

How recorded packs are made

Someone presses each key of a real keyboard in front of a microphone, press and release, then cuts, cleans and levels every file. Klack’s FAQ says “each switch set consist of over 100 audio files that need to be recorded and mastered individually”, and calls making one “an immensely time consuming and therefore expensive task”. Kiiwi records the number, top, home and bottom rows separately, with 8 samples per switch. Kachunk’s maker says they “recorded two actual typewriters and 24 mechanical keyboard switches”.

Not every recording comes from the app’s maker. Kiiwi’s developer later wrote that its packs “are from kbsim and MechvibesDX”, two free projects. Mechvibes’ community page lists 94 packs with no licence stated, so their origin is often unclear.

How Teclo synthesizes a pack

Teclo’s sound engine builds each key press from parts of a keyboard, then renders them as audio files the app plays:

• The contact. A short noise burst for the finger meeting the cap, then a second for the stem bottoming out, with the travel time between them.
• The switch and cap. Resonances at the frequencies that give a switch its character.
• The plate and case. One struck panel with many resonances; Butter, for example, has 14 of them from 1,300 to 5,250 Hz.
• The extras. A click leaf for a clicky switch, a ringing spring, the rattle of a stabiliser wire under the wide keys, a typebar strike for the typewriter.

Each key draws its own small differences from the same model, so neighbouring keys differ the way they do on a real board, and every build of Teclo renders identical packs.

What each gets right

Where recordings win

If you want the sound of one specific, well-known switch, a careful recording of it is the closest you can get, and synthesis is not a substitute. That is what Klack sells, and some of its packs are praised by name in its reviews.

Where synthesis wins

You can change it. Teclo’s Create page moves a pack towards soft or clacky, deep or bright, short or long, and the result is still a full pack with presses and releases. Synthesis also makes packs from things that are not keyboards, and there is no recording whose licence you have to wonder about.

Neither is your keyboard

One Hacker News commenter, who owns the switches a recording claimed to be, wrote: “they sound nothing like in the sound representation. People forget how much the plate, material of the keyboard etc vary the sound.” That is true of every pack, recorded or synthesized. Play the four above, then trust your own ears; thock, clack and creamy helps put words to what you hear, and how keyboard sound apps work covers what happens after the sound is chosen.