Not All Linears Are The Same!
Figure 1: Not even all of these (mostly) KTT-made linears are the same! After all of my years of collecting, reviewing, and obsessing over switches, I can say with certainty that linear switches are the most misunderstood of all of the switch types. No, I’m not talking about mechanically either, as all of the claims of them “just going straight up and down” are somewhat kind of true. (Not too much though, don’t get that excited.) The part that is often misunderstood, though, is usually in what is being implied when people say that these switches just go straight up and down – “All linears might as well be the same.” If the title of this article didn’t make that obvious enough to you, I find that sort of idea to be completely and utterly wrong. The people who make these implications wouldn’t say that a Cherry MX Black is the same as a Novelkeys Cream switch? They also certainly wouldn’t ever claim that every Gateron-made linear is the same as every fancy TTC one out there...
May 29, 2024
We’d love to hear a little bit about yourself and your history - relevant to mech keys or not. Where are you from, what is your “day job”, what are your other hobbies and interests aside from keyboards? Hey, well my day job is to design and do renders for a company that makes keyboards and gaming products. So I live from this hobby everyday! I also have other small hobbies that I'm just starting right now which are vinyls and all the hi-fi stuff that I can't comprehend so I'm starting slowly in this other hobby haha. I'm also getting into Legos and I don't have that much space in my house, but it's so hard to hold back! How did you get into mechanical keyboards as a hobby? Was there any particular event that caused you to seek it out, or was it a slow burn over time? I got into the keyboard hobby thanks to a youtuber/twitch streamer named Alexelcapo. He said that they were going to build him a keyboard for more than $1500. I was intrigued by that comment because I said, ''how the hell a keyboard is going to cost so much''. To my surprise, the person who built him that keyboard was no one else but TaehaTypes. I watched the whole stream of his Keycult build. Now we are here. If you don’t mind, could you please share your current keyboard/desk setup? Photos appreciated but not required. This is my desk, I have more than 10 keyboards so I rotate them every week!
What caused you to take the next step in the hobby, moving from enjoying keyboards to designing keysets and taking on more of a “making” role? It was when I discovered geekhack. I saw that many people would upload their designs and some stores took them and sold them! I was so happy that people were able to show their designs.I have to admit my first post on geekhack was a bit rough. I didn't get discouraged and I designed my first set (GMK Cream Matcha) 1 year after researching a lot more! Which of your own designs/projects are you the most proud of? The set I am most proud of is Cubed, it was a roller coaster of emotions that set! I'm also proud of Matcha, even though it wasn't a great success, and all the bad things that happened. I can say that I survived my first successful GB. What is your favorite design of someone else’s? Either in terms of pure execution, or “I wish I had thought of that idea”? The set that made me fall in love with this hobby 100% which was GMK Future Funk! I love it because I love future funk music, citypop etc, the deskmat made me completely fall in love with that set, to this day I still use that set and the keys are all shiny because I use it so much haha. What is a concept or idea that you’ve had, but have been unable to create (whether for technical reasons, licensing, etc)? I've been wanting to do a French Duo Musicians set since I started the hobby, but I can't get the idea right to make the set look right. It's something I want to be spectacular because I love that band, I want it to look so good!
Thanks again to Mr. Bingo for answering our many questions! We will be back shortly with some more insights into his design process and inspirations for the WLK-MN keycap set in particular. Be sure to hit Request to stay in the loop for future developments and launch!