KeyslamAbout
About Keyslam
Keyslam is a native Mac menu-bar app that plays real keyboard and typewriter recordings as you type. It is made by Samson and sold by Venture Deals, Co. Here is who we are, how every sound is made, and what the app never does.
Updated
Short answer: Keyslam is a $3.99 macOS app, made by its founder Samson and sold by Venture Deals, Co., that plays real keyboard recordings on every keystroke. Each of its 15 packs is cut from one CC0 recording on Freesound, sorted into soft, medium, hard and slam bands of real strikes. The app makes no network connections.
Keyslam at a glance
- Name
- Keyslam, the Mac keyboard sound app
- Made by
- Samson, founder
- Sold by
- Venture Deals, Co., through Stripe Checkout
- Current version
- 1.0.1
- Runs on
- macOS 13 Ventura or later, Apple silicon or Intel
- Price
- $3.99 once, 7-day free trial
- Sounds
- 15 packs cut from real CC0 recordings
- Network
- None. The app makes no connections
- Website
- keyslam.com
Who makes it
Keyslam is made by Samson, its founder. The company that sells it is Venture Deals, Co.: when you buy, checkout happens on Stripe's page in your browser, and Venture Deals, Co. is the seller on your receipt.
The idea is simple. MacBook keys are quiet, and many Apple silicon MacBooks carry a motion sensor that can feel a keystroke land. Keyslam puts the two together: real keyboard recordings, picked by how hard you actually type, in a small native keyboard sound app for Mac that stays out of your way.
Version 1.0.1 is out: a universal app, notarized by Apple. It's free to try for 7 days, then $3.99 once, and the download page has the install steps and requirements. The changelog lists what is in it.
Writing about Keyslam? The Keyslam press kit has the fact sheet, boilerplate, logo and screenshots.
How the sounds are made
No pack is synthesized, and none is built from separate sessions at different strengths. Each one starts as a single recording of someone typing, which Keyslam's slicer (part of its source code, run when the packs are built) turns into a pack in six steps:
- Find every keystroke. The slicer looks for sharp onsets in a high-passed energy envelope of the recording.
- Pair presses with key-ups. Each press is matched with the quieter release that follows it. The two typewriter packs have no key-up sounds.
- Set aside the wide keys. Space, Return and Delete ring darker and longer on a real board, so up to about 14% of presses, the darkest and longest-ringing, are kept apart for them. The typewriters skip this step: Return rings a bell, and Space and Delete use the regular takes.
- Drop bad hits. Clipped strikes and strikes that overlap the previous key's ring are thrown out.
- Sort by natural loudness. The remaining presses are ranked by energy and split into four bands. Up to 6 takes per band are kept for regular keys and up to 4 for wide keys.
- Level everything. Each take is moved most of the way toward its band's level target. Then the whole pack is set so the same medium-strength typing passage, played through the app's engine, measures -28 LUFS (ITU-R BS.1770 integrated loudness), so switching packs keeps the volume about the same.
The four strength bands
The bands come from where each strike falls among all the presses in that recording. Strikes in the gaps between bands aren't used.
| Band | Strikes taken from | What they are | Level target (vs medium) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Soft | 8th to 30th percentile | Lighter everyday taps (the faintest 8% aren't used) | 0.55× |
| Medium | 38th to 62nd percentile | Your ordinary keystroke | 1× |
| Hard | 70th to 88th percentile | Firm, deliberate presses | 1.45× |
| Slam | 92nd to 100th percentile | The hardest ~8% of strikes in the take | 2× |
From RecordingSlicer.swift in the Keyslam source. Percentiles are of press energy within one recording; levels are amplitude targets relative to the medium band.
Hear the four bands of one recording
Pick a board and play the same short phrase from each band. Everything you hear comes from one real typing take; only the strikes that were chosen change.
Pick a board, then press a band.
Every recording, credited
All source recordings were released into the public domain (CC0) on Freesound. Thank you to the people who recorded them. Typewriter packs add a separate bell recording for Return.
How the app uses the bands
On MacBooks with Apple's motion sensor, Keyslam reads the accelerometer about 800 times a second, compares each keystroke's jolt with how you usually type, and blends the two nearest bands. On Intel Macs, desktops, the M1 MacBook Air and the 13-inch M1 MacBook Pro, you pick the band yourself and every sound still works. How force sensing works.
What Keyslam doesn't do
- No network connections. The license key is Ed25519-signed and checked offline on your Mac. The trial date sits in your Keychain.
- No analytics, no account. Nothing about your use of the app is collected.
- No recording of what you type. It uses which key went down to pick a sound, and its keyboard tap is listen-only, so it can't change or block a keystroke.
The details are in the privacy policy.
Not to be confused with
“Keyslam” here always means the Mac keyboard sound app at keyslam.com. It isn't affiliated with any game, company or project that uses a similar name.
About Keyslam: questions
Who makes Keyslam?
Keyslam is made by Samson, its founder. It is sold by Venture Deals, Co., and payments go through Stripe Checkout. You can reach us through the contact page.
Were the soft and slam sounds recorded separately?
No. Each pack comes from one real typing recording. Every strike in it is detected and sorted by how loud it naturally was, so soft comes from the lighter everyday taps and slam is the hardest ~8% of strikes in the same take. Each band is then leveled toward its own target.
Is Keyslam related to other projects with a similar name?
No. Keyslam, the Mac keyboard sound app at keyslam.com, isn't affiliated with any game, company or project that uses a similar name.