Is thock the same as creamy?

No, though they often come together. Thock is about pitch: deep and muted. Creamy is about texture: smooth, with no scratch, ping or rattle. A board can be thocky and scratchy, or creamy and fairly bright.

What does a poppy keyboard sound like?

Short and crisp, a little higher than thock, with a quick pop and almost no ring. Long-pole linear switches and the tape mod are common ways to get it.

Are thocky keyboards quieter?

Usually a little, because a thocky sound has less high-frequency energy, and that's the part that carries across a room. A hard typist on a thocky board can still be loud: volume comes mostly from how hard you bottom out.

Can I make a MacBook sound thocky?

Not the physical keyboard, but you can play a thocky recording on every key. In Keyslam, pick Topre, Rainy 75 or Vintage Technics. With headphones, you're the only one who hears it.

Thocky vs Clacky vs Creamy Keyboards: Hear Each Sound

Short answer: thocky means deep and muted, a low, rounded “thock”. Clacky means higher, sharper and brighter. Creamy means smooth and soft-edged, with no scratch or rattle, usually from well-lubed linear switches. Poppy is short, crisp and a little higher, like a pop. The words describe pitch and texture, not volume, and the keycaps, plate, case and lube shape them as much as the switch does.

Word	What you hear	Usually comes from	Closest board here
Thocky	Low, rounded and muted, with a short ring	Thick PBT caps, a dense or foam-filled case, a softer plate, damped switches	Topre, Rainy 75
Clacky	Higher, sharper and brighter, with more ring	Thin ABS caps, a metal plate, a hollow case, hard bottom-outs	MX Red, WhiteFox
Creamy	Smooth and soft-edged: no scratch, ping or rattle	Lubed linear switches, tuned stabilizers, foam	Rainy 75, Vintage Technics
Poppy	Short, crisp and a little higher; a quick pop, then quiet	Long-pole linear switches, the tape mod	No textbook match yet; nearest is the crisp Leopold
Clicky	A sharp, separate click before the bottom	A click jacket or click bar inside the switch, or a buckling spring	MX Blue, Unicomp

What does thocky mean?

Thock is onomatopoeia: the word sounds like the noise. A thocky keyboard has most of its sound in the low and low-mid frequencies, a soft attack and a short decay, closer to a wooden block than a plastic tap. People use it as praise, and it's the sound many custom-keyboard builders chase. The Topre pack is the classic example: its rubber domes cushion every bottom-out, which is why it's our first pick for ASMR keyboard sounds on a Mac. For a mechanical board described the same way, the Rainy 75 pack is one its uploader tagged “thocky”. (Searching for the Thock app instead? Two different Mac apps share that name; here's which Thock app for Mac is which.)

What makes a keyboard sound thocky?

Dense keycaps. Thick PBT caps absorb more of the hit and push the pitch down.
A softer plate or mount. Polycarbonate or FR4 plates and gasket mounts flex a little, which takes the edge off the high frequencies.
A heavy or foam-filled case. Less empty space means less hollow ring.
Damping in the switch. Topre domes and silent switches soften the bottom-out.
A lighter touch. Hard bottom-outs add brightness to any board.

What makes a keyboard sound clacky?

The opposite recipe: thin ABS keycaps, a stiff aluminum or brass plate, a hollow plastic case and hard bottom-outs. Clacky isn't worse, just brighter, and plenty of people prefer it because it sounds fast and gives clear feedback. The MX Red pack, recorded on a Corsair K95, is a clacky board; the WhiteFox is punchier, with a longer ring.

What does creamy mean?

Creamy describes texture more than pitch. On a creamy board each press glides, the bottom-out is soft-edged, and there's no scratch from dry switches, ping from springs or rattle from stabilizers. It usually means lubed linear switches in a well-damped board. Creamy and thocky often go together, but they aren't the same thing. Our closest matches are the Rainy 75 pack, which its uploader tagged both “creamy” and “thocky” (the switches aren't named), and the Vintage Technics pack, an old Technics-branded board with wax-lubed Gateron Yellow linears.

How to make your keyboard sound creamy

Lube the switches. A thin coat of switch lubricant on the stem rails and inside the housing smooths the travel and takes out scratch. Linear switches gain the most.
Tune the stabilizers. Lube the wire ends and housings under Space, Return, Shift and Backspace so the long keys stop rattling.
Add foam. Case foam, and a thin sheet between the plate and PCB on boards that allow it, removes the hollow ring.
Try the tape mod. A few layers of painter's tape on the back of the PCB deepen the sound and make it a little poppier.
Finish with thicker keycaps and a desk mat. PBT caps and a soft surface take out the last of the clack.

All of that needs a mechanical keyboard you can open. On a MacBook, the closest you can get is a recording: Keyslam plays the Rainy 75, Vintage Technics or Topre board on every key you press, in all your apps. See mechanical keyboard sounds for Mac.

Poppy and clicky, briefly

Poppy is a short, crisp, slightly higher sound that stops quickly. You hear it from long-pole linear switches, whose stems bottom out on a center pole, and from boards with the tape mod. Clicky is the sharp, separate click of switches like Cherry MX Blue, or the snap of a buckling spring like the Unicomp. It's a mechanism rather than a texture, and it tends to dominate whatever else the board does.

Typing force changes the word

How hard you type moves any board along the scale. Light presses that stop short of the bottom sound softer and rounder; hard bottom-outs add clack. In Keyslam each board has four bands of real strikes, from soft to slam, and on MacBooks with the motion sensor the band follows how hard you hit. How force sensing works.

Thocky vs clacky vs creamy: what the sound words mean

The sound words, side by side

Play two in a row