[HN Gopher] Show HN: Unclack - a macOS app that auto-mutes your ...
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Show HN: Unclack - a macOS app that auto-mutes your keyboard
Author : robotsquidward
Score : 223 points
Date : 2021-01-05 12:27 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (unclack.app)
(TXT) w3m dump (unclack.app)
| kahmos wrote:
| Great stuff, but has wider functionality krisp.ai
| boogies wrote:
| For the opposite effect, install `bucklespring` to enjoy an
| authentic classic clacking on any keyboard (most convenient on
| GNU/Linux, packaged for the biggest distros).
|
| "This project emulates the sound of my old faithful IBM Model-M
| space saver bucklespring keyboard while typing on my notebook,
| mainly for the purpose of annoying the [heck] out of my
| coworkers.
|
| Bucklespring runs as a background process and plays back the
| sound of each key pressed and released on your keyboard, just as
| if you were using an IBM Model-M. The sound of each key has
| carefully been sampled, and is played back while simulating the
| proper distance and direction for a realistic 3D sound palette of
| pure nostalgic bliss" -- https://github.com/zevv/bucklespring
| jcun4128 wrote:
| hmm acquired taste perhaps https://youtu.be/21AuWT1lDMc?t=13
| although not sure if same sound as the repo you linked
|
| though I do use a mechanical keyboard at home
| kiddico wrote:
| The options returned from -h match that repo[0] so I'd assume
| they're the same.
|
| [0]
| https://github.com/zevv/bucklespring/blob/master/main.c#L81
| karmakaze wrote:
| Oh I loved my Model-M Space Saver, collected quite a few of
| them. Co-workers did sometimes comment/complain but not that
| often. I also had this habit of moving my cursor keys
| up/down/left/right in rapid/slow movements while I was thinking
| deeply on a problem. Combined with how loud and that it clicks
| on each downpress and clacks on release was quite the
| cacophony.
| tartoran wrote:
| Mechanical keyboards are like fidget spinners in a way, they
| satisfy a craving for tactile/auditory feedback that some of
| us need. I was never bit by fidget spinners but I do have
| some keyboard habits like the one you described above.
| macjohnmcc wrote:
| I have the full size Model-M I would use a Model-M Space
| Saver as my daily driver but the full size is too big for my
| desk while also using a mouse.
| avh02 wrote:
| > I also had this habit of moving my cursor keys
| up/down/left/right in rapid/slow movements while I was
| thinking deeply on a problem.
|
| the human HDD activity light
| pkulak wrote:
| For folks like me who _had_ to hear this in action:
|
| https://youtu.be/Y7dKyGoqn9w?t=30
| cmroanirgo wrote:
| It would be awesome if this app provided a toggle you could
| click that would scramble/unscramble the sounds while you're
| entering passwords, that way evedroppers can't get anything
| meaningful (other than your password length)
| boogies wrote:
| "To temporarily silence bucklespring, for example to enter
| secrets, press ScrollLock twice (but be aware that those
| ScrollLock events are delivered to the application); same
| to unmute. The keycode for muting can be changed with the
| -m option. Use keycode 0 to disable the mute function." --
| the paragraph after the section quoted in my OP.
| boobsbr wrote:
| Oh, how I miss my 486, with a Model M, and running OS/2.
| r00fus wrote:
| Man, this is brilliant. Would do nicely on zoom walkthroughs or
| instructional videos (both of which I'm doing more of these
| days).
| srtjstjsj wrote:
| It doesn't "mute your keyboard" it "mutes everything" which isn't
| very useful in a meeting.
| mbreese wrote:
| It's useful if you are able to stop typing when you need to
| talk.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| How often are you typing and speaking at the same time though?
| I'm not talented enough to do that, personally. :)
|
| I think this app is really clever. I would definitely use it if
| my version of macOS wasn't nearly a decade too old.
| sgustard wrote:
| I may not type, but I certainly shift-tab while I talk and
| need to reference something in another window.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| Hm... I suppose it depends on what this app's threshold is
| muting the mic...
| throwaway12757 wrote:
| Hmm.. I type and talk at the same time. It's not all the
| time, but I talk in meeting while I'm still typing the last
| part of my sentence.
| rjmunro wrote:
| When I downloaded it the DMG file was 12.2Mb. I was suspicious of
| why an app this small in function would require such a large
| download, and looked inside, but the actual contents was only
| 1.4Mb, half of which was icons etc., which seems much more
| reasonable. If I right click on Unclack.app and choose
| "compress", I get a file under 1Mb in size.
|
| Does this always happen with DMG files, or is there something
| weird going on here? This file is 10x bigger than it could be.
| michelb wrote:
| The minimum size for an empty DMG I could create on my mac was
| 8Mb. If I make the DMG directly from the folder with the app in
| it, it becomes 1.2Mb. Maybe the developer uses a script that
| makes it this size.
| anvarik wrote:
| hmm why can't i open the dmg? i'm on big sur
| cmiller1 wrote:
| Here's a tip from people I know that do streaming from their
| computer: get the microphone off your desk. Find something else
| to put it on or buy an arm it can attach to. The fact that your
| device or mic are sitting on your desk where the keyboard clack
| vibrations are traveling right through amplifies them.
| linux2647 wrote:
| That may still not prevent Cherry MX blues from being picked up
| by the microphone
| QuadDamaged wrote:
| Topre, my dude!
| samatman wrote:
| Hey some of us like the clicky-clack! I optimize around the
| most common use case, which is me, at home, in my home
| office. This predates the pandemic and I fully intend it to
| postdate it as well.
|
| I don't mind a little Foley on a call; I'm either muted
| anyway, or it doesn't matter. There must be people out
| there who can type and talk at the same time, but I never
| got the hang of it.
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| Topre is indeed great. The HHKB Pro 2/3 makes an excellent
| office/WFH board because it's tactile while being
| relatively silent. Feels nice to use without making a ton
| of noise.
| vestrigi wrote:
| Also really improves the microphone placing problem. On the
| desk my microphone would always be in my hands way or in front
| of the monitor and the cable was annoying too. I built a cheap
| microphone arm out of an Ikea swinging desk lamp (Tertial). It
| required some time but was a fun project and now I have a
| matching arm to my desk lamp.
| floatingatoll wrote:
| I have a fancy well-tuned microphone off my desk and on a
| baffle mount and it still picks up keyboard sounds just fine.
| It's quieter, but it isn't a perfect cure.
| Redploy wrote:
| Contact Redploy4000@gmail.com if you're looking for a skilled,
| quick, reliable and confident ethical hacker or programmer.
| EE84M3i wrote:
| This made me do a double take: "The key board on Macs has
| artificial clacking?" but of course this actually mutes your
| microphone, not your keyboard.
| matsemann wrote:
| My mouse only has artificial clicking. It's a rollermouse
| without any real click in the roller-bar. It's quite trippy to
| disable the clicking-sound, suddenly it doesn't feel like I'm
| actually pressing the bar. But with sound it feels like I have
| haptic feedback.
|
| I think the trackpad on my previous mac was similar? Or, it had
| haptic feedback, but it was artificial and could be tweaked in
| SW.
| [deleted]
| eloeffler wrote:
| I thought the same thing! :'D Thanks for enlightening me
| SamBam wrote:
| I was very confused as well, since that's exactly what it
| sounded like.
|
| That said, I wouldn't have been surprised at all. I was never
| more shocked that when I discovered that the trackpad on my
| MacBook Pro didn't actually buckle a millimeter, and was
| instead entirely simulated by the haptic feedback. Mind. Blown.
| chris_st wrote:
| I had a similar experience with my iPhone 7+. I had forgotten
| I'd turned it off. I picked it up, and wondered if the home
| button was broken, because it wasn't moving when I pressed
| it. Then I realized it was off, and had that OH YEAH, it's
| just a sensor with haptic feedback... pretty amazing!
| WanderPanda wrote:
| Yeah, that feeling still does not go away for me. It really
| feels like the phone is dead, when it is off / the battery
| is actually dead
| srtjstjsj wrote:
| Although Force Touch is simulated clicking, the trackpad does
| flex slightly when pressed hard. It doesn't depress as a
| button, but it doesn't maintain rigid position. I don't know
| if it's intentional or just weak metal, but it's good because
| it relieves pressure on fingers.
| aasasd wrote:
| Related: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soundaktor
| robotsquidward wrote:
| Yeah, a little confusing. I updated the text on the Unclack
| landing page to specify that it mutes your _microphone_ , not
| your keyboard. Appreciate the feedback!
| steerablesafe wrote:
| Certain model M keyboards have speakers in them, possibly for
| audio feedback for the otherwise quiet keyboard. /s
| srtjstjsj wrote:
| Please don't post sarcasm. You can make an equivalent
| statement ("it almost seems...", "I can imagine...") without
| the needless twist into a false/sarcastic formulation that
| just makes your post needlessly harder to understand.
| glhaynes wrote:
| Haven't used a Model M in 25 years but this comment brought
| me back to that time, wondering what the apparent speaker
| grill underneath was. For those who are also curious, here's
| what Wikipedia says:
|
| >Until the late 4th-generation variants, most Model Ms have a
| 1.25" slotted, circular speaker grille in their bottom
| surfaces. Relatively few contain an actual speaker, however,
| which was useful only for sounding beep codes on older
| terminal systems. The most common P/Ns with speakers are
| 1394540 and 51G872, made for RS/6000 UNIX workstations.
| imhoguy wrote:
| I have thought it silences keyboard in a room completely with
| some active noise canceling magic. Such would be helpful to not
| wake up my spouse at night.
| smcleod wrote:
| For anyone that's tried them both - how does it compare to
| krisp.ai?
|
| I've been using Krisp since the start of 2020 and have been
| really happy with both its audio performance and that it doesn't
| seem to use excessive CPU/GPU, not to mention that it doesn't
| require nvidia hardware. Krisp is a paid, closed source product
| however.
| apetresc wrote:
| I'm almost certain that Unclack isn't doing any audio-
| processing magic. It simply knows when you're typing because,
| you know, keyboard are part of your computer, and mutes when
| enough keys are pressed in a short enough window of time. It
| shouldn't use any significant resources at all.
| robotsquidward wrote:
| Yeah I can confirm haha. It's dead simple, but also hopefully
| has the benefit of that simplicity on your performance.
| joelschw wrote:
| Is it Big Sur only?
| robotsquidward wrote:
| Unfortunately yes... I'm using some of the latest SwiftUI API's
| to build the UI that I haven't back-ported for Catalina just
| yet.
|
| Of course my work laptop is also locked on Catalina, so I kind
| of played myself there as well! I'll definitely consider adding
| that backwards compatibility in the future if possible.
| num wrote:
| I'm speculating here, but maybe there are better controls in
| Big Sur to easily mute input devices compared to prior versions
| of OSX. I've attempted building a global microphone mute app
| (for external microphones) on Catalina but never found an easy
| way to fully mute all mics such as external USB mics or a those
| connected through a USB ADC. The best I could get on Catalina
| was to lower the inputVolume to 0 which does not truly mute the
| microphone. I never found an app that "solved" this problem for
| all microphones on OSX versions prior to Big Sur.
| JosephRedfern wrote:
| According to the FAQ, yes: https://unclack.app/faq/#/
| m000 wrote:
| Huge bummer. It would be nice though if the FAQ included a
| short technical explanation for this limitation, similar to
| how it explains "Why does Unclack need Accessibility
| access?".
| mrtranscendence wrote:
| That's definitely a bummer. On my work laptop I'm stuck on
| Catalina for the foreseeable future, and that's where this
| app would be useful. Presumably most people using macs for
| work aren't on Big Sur yet.
| joelschw wrote:
| Darn
| henryackerman wrote:
| Indeed.
| interactivecode wrote:
| A bit silly but does anyone know what editor app is shown in this
| gif[0]?
|
| [0]
| https://raw.githubusercontent.com/robotsquidward/gifs/master...
| JosephRedfern wrote:
| I wondered the same. It looks a bit like Typora, but I think
| it's something else...
| daysm wrote:
| Yeah looks very similar to Typora, but that's not it
| dubcanada wrote:
| My guess would be Typora with a dark mode theme/few
| customizations.
|
| Most of the other Mac markdown editors either have it split
| into two panes, show the markdown syntax when you type or
| don't look like that (centered).
| vonseel wrote:
| Maybe marked
| refulgentis wrote:
| Sad to hear macOS lets apps snoop on my keystrokes.
| samatman wrote:
| Strictly opt-in, you must be thinking of Linux...
| samrolken wrote:
| Apps must be specifically authorized by the user to do so,
| otherwise they cannot. This process is detailed on the FAQ
| page.
| faizshah wrote:
| This is genius but I usually mute myself before and after
| speaking. Great idea though for us mechanical switch folks.
| thinkmassive wrote:
| Zoom makes this easy with spacebar as push-to-talk button
| https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/360000510003-Push-...
| trungdq88 wrote:
| Space bar as push to talk in Zoom is terrible. After
| countless time it sends the spaces to the chat box while I'm
| talking, I'm now back to reliable mouse click.
| gbil wrote:
| I use Mute Me[1] for this with the shortcut in the Touch Bar to
| mute and unmute quickly. I'm not sure if Unclack offers a Touch
| Bar shortcut (or keyboard shortcute) because reaching out to
| the Menu bar all the time is annoying
|
| [1] https://github.com/pixel-point/mute-me
| walshemj wrote:
| Or use a very directional mic/head set
| wheybags wrote:
| A solution like rtx voice seems a better way to go tbh. For those
| who don't know, it's an nvidia thing that uses a GPU accelerated
| (ofc, it's nvidia) neural network to denoise voice calls, from
| all kinds of noise, not just typing. It's really pretty
| impressive, here's a demo:
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uWUHkCgslNE
|
| I wish it wasn't proprietary though (and worse, hardware
| specific). And windows only of course.
| Dumbdo wrote:
| For me noisetorch [0] (based on RNNoise [1][2]) works pretty
| good. I'm using RTX Voice while I'm working on Windows and
| noisetorch while working on manjaro.
|
| RTX Voice seems to work a bit better, but noisetorch compares
| really well to it. I have a microphone which has static noise
| and is not really mechanical decoupled from my table. Both
| applications are good at cancelling that kind of noise.
|
| Noisetorch is a bit more focused on suppressing noise while
| you're not talking, which is the use case of the posted
| article. RTX Voice is better at suppressing noise while
| talking, which you can hear in Nvidias demos as well.
|
| [0] https://github.com/lawl/NoiseTorch
|
| [1] https://github.com/werman/noise-suppression-for-voice/
|
| [2] https://jmvalin.ca/demo/rnnoise/
| uberduper wrote:
| If anyone knows how to configure pulseaudio to use both
| RNNoise and module-echo-cancel together, I'd very much
| appreciate some pointers. My results have been a very
| distorted robotic voice.
| distantsounds wrote:
| I love these solutions but none are as easy as "install an
| app and click a button to turn on." RTX Voice has that locked
| down. I'd use RNNoise instead if there was a standalone app
| that just "worked" on my mic input. But here I have to jump
| through hoops for it to work.
| lawl wrote:
| Can you elaborate on what hoops exactly you have to jump
| through? (genuinely curious, i wrote noisetorch and always
| looking to improve it)
| Dumbdo wrote:
| Not the OP, but I'd say noisetorch already works pretty
| good for that use case. Especially with the recent
| additions of pre-selecting the last device and stuff like
| that, I really appreciate those minor QOL improvements.
|
| If I compare it to how RTX voice works, it's _slightly_
| more complicated to setup (currently no distribution
| through standard package managers/simply downloading a
| file and clicking it to start everything) and it doesn't
| autostart like RTX voice does on windows startup. But
| jugding from your issues [0] I understand the decision
| and I'll set it up manually.
|
| It might be an idea to allow for autostart for users who
| don't care about the CPU impact because their CPUs are
| big enough or whatever.
|
| Nevertheless, your solution is actually very close to
| what OP is describing: "install an app and click a button
| to turn on". So thanks for maintaining, I use it daily!
|
| [0] https://github.com/lawl/NoiseTorch/issues/6
| lawl wrote:
| It's worth noting that RNNoise uses way less resources than
| RTX Voice and doesn't require a GPU. There's a new paper by
| Jean-Marc Valin (RNNoise author) about a new and improved
| version PercepNet[0] that's also very light on resource
| usage, but it's currently lacking an open source
| implementation. I found someone working on that here[1]. So
| if anyone here has the time and ML chops to open source a
| PercepNet implementation, that would bring open source noise
| suppression quite a bit forward.
|
| [0] https://arxiv.org/pdf/2008.04259.pdf
|
| [1] https://github.com/jzi040941/PercepNet
| ComodoHacker wrote:
| Off-topic but I wonder if there's some creative department at
| Nvidia, whose job is to invent a compelling mass-market uses
| for their beefy GPUs, as crypto rush is fading out and the
| gaming market hasn't much potential to grow further.
| lozaning wrote:
| Crypto rush is doing anything but fading. Eth mainnet has
| more hashing power on it now than it ever has. Nvidia is
| selling 30 series cards directly to mining firms, much to the
| chagrin of anyone who wants to buy one for themselves.
| https://etherscan.io/chart/hashrate
| atonse wrote:
| I remember talking to a dude 10 years ago at an unconference
| whose grad project was to reimplement Database indexes to use
| GPUs. He was saying in some prototypes he was yielding orders
| of magnitude better performance, but it was still a very
| obscure idea.
|
| This is the sort of stuff I'm sure they're already working on
| to find new customers.
| dschu wrote:
| Krisp uses ML to remove background noises like dog barking,
| crispy chips and such.
|
| Comes with a subscription model for unlimited use though.
|
| https://krisp.ai/
| taf2 wrote:
| Any open source models available v
| fareesh wrote:
| Here is a blog post that describes their approach
| https://towardsdatascience.com/real-time-noise-
| suppression-u...
| [deleted]
| newsbinator wrote:
| I had people complain they couldn't hear me well when I used
| their (deprecated) iOS app. I kept having to turn off the ML
| noise-cancelling.
| dschu wrote:
| Have you used the internal mic?
|
| I found out that if the phone is too far away, the voice
| would flagged as ,background chatting' and therefore muted.
|
| Once I connected a headset those issues went away.
| newsbinator wrote:
| I was using standard corded iPhone earpods.
| whymarrh wrote:
| I had similar issues with their macOS app using a pretty
| basic headphone+microphone setup (EarPods). I ended up
| leaving it off and not re-installing in on my latest setup.
|
| I've had a subscription from mid-2019, though I no longer
| use it. I find Zoom's basic noise suppression good enough
| for calls.
| alchemism wrote:
| I believe Zoom licensed Krisp to handle noise-cancelling
| in their client.
| chungus_khan wrote:
| This seems like a fantastic use case for the ML hardware
| included on new-generation Macintoshes.
| breakfastduck wrote:
| Only it's not a 'better way to go' because the thing doesn't
| work on the hardware this post is directly aimed at.
| lima wrote:
| If you use GSuite Enterprise, you can use Meet's built-in noise
| cancellation which runs on TPUs in a DC.
|
| It's basically magic. You can have someone vacuuming the room
| right next to you or cook dinner and your coworkers won't
| notice. Typing noise is just gone. It has improved our meetings
| so much.
|
| https://krisp.ai works locally and is cheaper, but it
| noticeably degrades quality (tested with the Chrome extension
| only).
| texasbigdata wrote:
| Can you describe this? Tried googling but couldn't find due
| to TPUs being so ubiquitous.
| fastball wrote:
| As in what is a TPU? It's Tensor Processing Unit.
|
| It's like a CPU/GPU, but specifically for doing the kind of
| math you come across with Machine Learning / Neural Network
| applications (mostly: lots and lots of dot products).
| shawabawa3 wrote:
| The sentence explaining what it does has a typo which makes it
| confusing:
|
| > Unclack is the small but mighty Mac utility that mutes your
| keyboard while you type.
|
| This should say "mutes your _microphone_ while you type". You
| can't mute a keyboard
| ubercore wrote:
| Same. I know Apple does software/tactile interactions (firm
| press, click sound on trackpads for instance) so I assumed this
| had to do with that, and that new Apple keyboards created an
| artificial click. "Mutes your call while typing" or something
| similar would have been more clear. I assumed this app wouldn't
| apply to me, but it does.
| masukomi wrote:
| in addition to what everyone else said about muting a
| microphone being a totally legit thing in English, you _can_
| mute a keyboard. For example, adding soft foam to soften the
| hit when it bottoms out would mute your keyboard somewhat.
| Obviously this app doesn't "mute the keyboard" but since we're
| being pedantic, it's not accurate to say it can't be done.
|
| keep in mind mute does not only mean "to silence" (verb form).
| It's also "deaden, muffle, or soften the sound of."
|
| So, practically speaking, there are very few physical objects
| that produce sound that can't be muted.
| boxed wrote:
| You can't mute a microphone. Mute is when something can't make
| a sound. You put a mic on mute.
|
| So no, the text is correct. But obviously it's wrong. It
| doesn't ONLY mute the keyboard, it mutes everything for the
| person typing. The keyboard, the person, the squeaking chair.
| robbrown451 wrote:
| "Mute your microphone" is quite standard.
|
| Most UIs show a microphone, that you can click on to disable.
| A circle with a slash through it will appear on top of the
| picture of the microphone. This is referred to as "muting."
|
| This should be enough to see why it is called "muting your
| microphone." While you could say "disable your microphone,"
| this can lead to confusion, such as thinking that you are
| talking about more permanently disabling it, such as you do
| in your computer settings.
|
| The most important thing about language is that it is
| understood. "Mute your microphone" is going to be understood.
| machello13 wrote:
| You can absolutely mute a microphone, since you can say "I
| muted my microphone" and any English speaker will understand
| exactly what you mean.
|
| edit: in fact I would go so far as to say that the majority
| of English speakers, at least here in America, would prefer
| saying "mute the mic" instead "put the mic on mute" (I've
| never heard anyone say the latter in actual conversation, to
| be honest).
| zarmin wrote:
| Just want to confirm I understood this sentence. Don't
| speak a lick of English though.
| ghostpepper wrote:
| As a native english speaker, I was confused about how it was
| possible to mute a keyboard. I did not immediately make the
| leap to "it mutes your mic when it detects typing on the
| keyboard"
| mosselman wrote:
| But what boxed is saying is that that leap is incorrect and
| shouldn't happen and that "it mutes the mic" is incorrect.
| machello13 wrote:
| Yeah, but he's wrong.
| Closi wrote:
| I actually quite like the phrase 'mute your keyboard' for this
| purpose.
|
| If it said 'mutes your microphone when you type' the use case
| isn't immediately clear unless you add 'so people can't hear
| your keyboard'. Adding the rest makes it clear but less
| concise.
|
| Each to their own, but I think this is fine for marketing copy.
| It's clear what it means, and redbull doesn't actually give you
| wings.
| jmmcd wrote:
| I disagree - it's not clear. I thought it was going to be
| some fancy machine learning to silence keyboard sounds while
| keeping the mic active for voice.
| hammock wrote:
| Colloquially we say "mute yourself" or "mute this or that
| person," so it functions in that context.
| milansm wrote:
| In that case, "mutes yourself" would be more appropriate.
| boxed wrote:
| Not colloquially. That's correct. Muting a mic is the
| colloquial expression. Think about what the word means:
| silence a thing. The mic does not make a sound.
| fastball wrote:
| But you're not muting the keyboard, you're muting everything.
| robotsquidward wrote:
| Thanks so much for your feedback! I actually just pushed an
| update to the homepage to make that tweak - you're right that
| it was a bit misleading.
| rkapsoro wrote:
| Oh man. I literally wrote a utility for OS X that does exactly
| this, in Swift, 6 years ago, as a test project to get my feet wet
| in that environment.
|
| https://github.com/orospakr/suppressor
|
| I don't imagine it still builds. Perhaps I should have followed
| through with it!
|
| Congrats to the author.
| shadykiller wrote:
| I thought this mutes(disables) the inbuilt keyboard on my
| macbook. Would be super helpful for me since my son randomly
| presses key on my macbook keyboard while I'm trying to type from
| my external keyboard.
|
| Still, a slick utility. Good luck !!
| robotsquidward wrote:
| Overwhelmed by your feedback & support! If anyone wants to follow
| Unclack on Product Hunt, you can check it out here:
| https://www.producthunt.com/posts/unclack-for-macos
| mparramon wrote:
| Beautiful homepage, great app UX so far. Will give it a try on my
| next call. Thanks a lot OP!
| rasfincher wrote:
| I can't believe this just appeared on the front page. A co-worker
| and I were just talking about this happening on calls. I'm going
| to send this to a few people unsolicited.
| theli0nheart wrote:
| Does Zoom does this automatically? I hardly ever hear keyboard
| sounds during video calls.
| layer8 wrote:
| So, people will instead see your mute indicator flicker
| haphazardly while you're typing. ;)
| robotsquidward wrote:
| Haha Unclack actually does let you configure the Menu Bar icon
| and mute indicator appearance, including being able to disable
| the mute indicator altogether! :)
| layer8 wrote:
| I meant the mute indicator in the video-conferencing app. :)
|
| At least in some apps participants can see for each
| participant whether they are muted or not.
| johnbellone wrote:
| Dude, take my money.
| rickyc091 wrote:
| Anyone know of a big overlay that stays in the foreground lets
| you know if you're muted/muted?
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Only application specific; Zoom will give you a notification if
| it detects noise (e.g. you speaking) while muted.
| JamesMcMinn wrote:
| After seeing this and being a bit disappointed it was for Mac
| only, I wrote a very quick and dirty script for Linux that does
| something similar [1].
|
| Probably has lots of bugs and missed edge cases (although it
| should handle not unmuting you if you mute yourself), but was fun
| to write none the less and might be useful.
|
| If you want to play it, please have a read before using it (it
| has to capture key presses using xinput but does nothing with
| actual key values) and I won't accept any responsibility if it
| mutes / unmutes you at an inopportune time, etc.
|
| [1] https://pastebin.com/CRuLWjzr
| oceliker wrote:
| I thought this was going to be an app that emits some kind of
| inverse sound through the laptop speakers to neutralize the
| keypress sound in real life. I wonder if that's possible.
| nt2h9uh238h wrote:
| Me too. I still have no idea what this thing is doing. An
| excellent example for a poorly written landing page.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| It says it mutes the mic while you type.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| brundolf wrote:
| Hah, I had the exact same thought based on the title
| pkamb wrote:
| top answer on this famous Stack Overflow post about muting the
| iPhone camera shutter sound:
|
| https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4401232/avfoundation-how...
| robotsquidward wrote:
| I wish! I spent a long time considering if I could detect
| keyboard sounds through the active microphone and mute on a
| certain decibel level or typing velocity, etc. or even get as
| fancy as that sort of noise-cancelling approach. In the end I
| went with a much more simplistic MVP - though I hope to explore
| more interesting ways to optimize in the future.
| wongarsu wrote:
| Active sound cancellation is an incredibly hard problem if you
| don't know the position of the listener.
| asiando wrote:
| The listener in this case is the microphone, so it has a
| fixed position related to the sound it would cancel (the
| keys).
|
| So the issue in this case is just that the sound keys produce
| varies.
| fastball wrote:
| I think the OC actually wanted active noise cancellation of
| the keys for their ears.
| Theodores wrote:
| Really keyboards should be engineered to be completely silent.
| Then, under each key there should be a small piezo electric
| speaker to make a key click noise for reasons of haptic
| feedback.
|
| The app that goes with this should then be able to do things
| like make the keyboard sound like an Apple keyboard, or a
| classic IBM one or even a typewriter. It should be one of those
| features like how digital cameras have a speaker in them to
| make a fake shutter sound.
|
| Since keyboards can already cost $200+ (Looking at you,
| Logitech) I don't think this is too much to ask, particularly
| if spill proof.
| korse wrote:
| Please elaborate on why keyboards should be engineered to be
| completely silent. I don't think it a bad trait, and it may
| be beneficial in certain applications but I don't understand
| why this should be a universal property of keyboards (like
| suspension is a universal property of cars).
| Theodores wrote:
| So that you don't wake up others such as cats or coworkers.
| franky47 wrote:
| No need to go through the speakers, you could detect
| keystrokes, map them to transients in the recorded audio stream
| and use a noise gate to reduce their volume (at the cost of a
| little added latency).
|
| Bonus point: this would allow you to speak and type at the same
| time with minimal reduction of speech comprehension, especially
| if using a multi-band noise gate (that acts on various
| frequency bands independently). It's a technique we used for
| dynamic de-essing (removing plosive "S" sounds in post-prod
| recordings) in a previous company.
| remram wrote:
| What he means is hiding the keypress sounds to the local
| user, not to the recording.
| fareesh wrote:
| nvidia has some software that you can install if you have a
| compatible GPU which will take your webcam stream and blur your
| background or do other background effects. I suppose the
| challenge here would be to figure out which parts of the audio
| are the speaker's voice and which parts aren't, and remove the
| parts that aren't.
|
| If the visualization of the audio is such that you can discern
| speech from other audio, similar to how you can discern the
| person's silhouette and figure out where the background is,
| then in theory it should be possible using the same technique.
|
| I suppose there are probably some pure audio processing
| techniques that don't rely on the visualization as well.
| axxl wrote:
| This exists already, it's called RTX Voice:
| https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/guides/nvidia-rtx-
| voice...
| powersnail wrote:
| That's my reaction, too. What kind of black magic can mute a
| physical keyboard? And I was a bit disappointed when I actually
| clicked.
|
| Mac book keyboards can be so loud. I remember in college, a guy
| in front row took notes on his laptop, and his typing was
| overpowering the professor. And the professor had a microphone.
| DontGiveTwoFlux wrote:
| Unfortunately the percussive clacks from a keyboard are
| probably too broad spectrum to neutralize. These transient
| waveforms are hard to beat.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| Budum-tish.
| [deleted]
| C4K3 wrote:
| I wish push-to-talk was more common. On linux I've been using
| this little python script that implements global push-to-talk by
| (un)muting the microphone in pulseaudio when you push a button.
| https://gitlab.com/somini/inpulse-to-talk
|
| Time to see if there's something equivalent for mac.
| hesk wrote:
| On Zoom, you can push to talk by pressing the space bar.
|
| Yes, this advice is Zoom-centric but the app calls out Zoom in
| the first sentence on the page, so I think it's fair.
| fastball wrote:
| We use discord for our company voice chat and you can easily
| enable push-to-talk if that's what you prefer.
| breakfastduck wrote:
| This is a god send. What a great little tool.
|
| I am constantly being berated by colleagues when I start loudly
| typing on my mechanical keyboard without thinking...
| stevebmark wrote:
| As well you should be, loud typing is disrespectful and
| distracting in any environment.
| pluc wrote:
| You already have a mute button.. do you really want to deal with
| unplanned un-muting as opposed to planned muting?
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| IMO mute should be the default in most meetings; plenty of apps
| (I know Zoom and Skype) have the spacebar as a "push to talk"
| button. PTT should be a standard in most meetings.
|
| I used to play eve online, having a few hundred people in a
| voice channel would be impossible if push-to-talk wasn't made
| mandatory.
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| Honestly boggles my mind that software like Google Meet hides
| the mute button if you stop moving your mouse and PTT isn't
| considered a base feature.
| kevincox wrote:
| I kinda get it if I move my mouse away as it shows more of
| the participant video. But if I am hovering over the mute
| button don't hide it!
|
| It is very frustrating.
|
| On GNOME I have set up a hotkey to mute my microphone (this
| is available but unbound by default). It is amazing as it
| works for all applications and doesn't matter what window
| is focused. The only downside is that you don't get the
| mute indicator.
| bartvk wrote:
| Microsoft Teams does the same, on iOS at least.
| ldjb wrote:
| Presumably this doesn't affect muting on Teams, Zoom or
| whatever videoconferencing software you're using, so it
| couldn't unmute you.
| vehemenz wrote:
| A global keyboard shortcut to mute your mic would probably be
| best, but otherwise system mute is not easily accessible in
| MacOS. The Command+Shift+M shortcut for mute in WebEx/Team/Zoom
| requires focus, which you most likely won't have if you're
| typing something.
| smcleod wrote:
| If you have a MacBook with a touchback you can add a mute mic
| button directly on it (You can an make a script that executes
| or use Mutify).
| Hnrobert42 wrote:
| You do not have a hardware mute button. There is an output
| mute, but not an input mute. I wrote one in about 10 lines of
| AppleScript and associated it with a hot key. It ~mostly~
| works.
|
| If you are talking about the application-specific software
| mute, I had such a terrible time finding it amongst all my open
| tabs and latency every time I wanted to type or speak that I
| wrote the above hardware-ish button.
| srtjstjsj wrote:
| Use a keyboard shortcut. Since you only need it when typing,
| your fingers are there when you need it.
| ethanbond wrote:
| GP did set it up to a keyboard shortcut. The problem
| they're calling out is needing to do it to the global input
| rather than app-specific. Many people use multiple VTC apps
| throughout the day.
| ethanbond wrote:
| I wrote a Hammerspoon script to do the same, but Microsoft
| Teams unmutes the default input every time you join a call.
| Did you run into this/have any idea how to get around it?
| [deleted]
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