Build-A-Bear Q1 Mod Build (ft. Alexotos)

i'm sorry when the q1 landed here i was more caught up with feeling like it was an uninspired clone of the gmk pro than i was helping someone figure out which board they should buy if they were considering both ultimately i left you with a conclusion to a video that wasn't helpful so i reached out to beloved keyboard creator and all-around great guy alex odos to see if he could point me in the right direction for some mods that could help make the best of the q1 and hopefully just in time for some fresh stock and the holidays i can help you make the call if you're still on the fence you ready let's go [Music] so i wrapped up the last video on the q1 saying this so which one would i pick neither to be honest i'd grab a kbd67 light instead which honestly is what i would pick if i were looking at an entry level board but not particularly helpful for a lot of people because one maybe you're looking specifically for a 75 and two it's really hard to get your hands on a kbd67 light but i digress there were a few things i really didn't like about the q1 it does have a really fun amount of flex with minimal dampening but boy does it ping i tested it with a really restrictive sheet of sort of thing that did a lot to cut down on the case noise but also really restricted the amount of flex and made it a really firm typing experience similar to the gm mk pro set a different way i tested both extremes and conceded that there was probably a middle ground in there somewhere so to save myself the trouble of finding that middle ground through a lot of trial and error i reached out to alex odos he's extremely knowledgeable and his youtube and twitch are home to probably the most wholesome community in the keyboard space alex i wanted to reach out because uh i went a little hard on the q1 in my video i don't know if you caught it or caught the outcome of that video but i did yeah q1 to me felt kind of like a like a watered down version of the gm mmk pro yeah see i think with the the interesting thing about the gmk pro versus the q1 which i kind of found out later as i kind of really dived in deep to both keyboards and going back to mod the gmk pro i feel like the q1 is more of like a sandbox keyboard in which you can play around with it more while the gmk pro like you're very limited in what you can do yeah and the beautiful thing about the q1 is you can do so much to it right that's i think where a lot of people landed uh the reason i reached out to you not just because you're like an awesome guy but because i hear you've pretty much dialed in the recipe for uh how to treat the q1 right and how to get the most out of it well there's gonna be three things that i used and this can all be purchased for under 20 25 let's just say uh and the beautiful thing about buying this stuff too is you'll have enough like so much left over that you can use this on many other keyboards in the future so really realistically this is pennies worth of mods so i use polyfill that'll eliminate some of that hollowness that you found in the case this also allows the case to still maintain some of its flex or bounce because it's just a soft like what you put in a pillow or a teddy bear right okay the next thing i ended up using was some pe foam now i did not use the pe foam in the traditional sense i did not put that in between the pcb and the plate i put the pe foam actually rolled up underneath where the space bar was underneath the pcb that's because i found that the space bar still was a bit hollow in certain areas and i want to dial that down a little bit too okay the last thing i did was the tape mod the tape mod helped kind of accentuate some of the the better sounds of the q1 and this kind of all led to a beautiful experience with the q1 in my opinion i still use the board right now it's in pieces but because i took out the switches from it someone to try something new but it's still a really good experience it honestly feels like oh it feels miles better than what the gmk pro is um and what it could be for the gmk pro so with those with those a few pieces i ended up making this really beautiful sounding keyboard that doesn't sound like a lot of overhead at all i mean and that's not i don't think it's anything i would have done i'm gonna take your advice i'm gonna go source all this stuff and then i'm gonna do this build myself and i'm gonna try to treat this q1 right like as if it was my baby that i was gonna use on my desk all the time sure sounds good awesome man i appreciate it talk soon no worries excited to hear it bye so i placed my order waited for everything to arrive and then i got to work every material surprised me in a way number one polyfill is not my favorite thing to work with is you wind up with a lot of strands kind of hanging out the edges of the keyboard that you have to take care of number two it should be illegal for the tape mod to be this effective i just used a couple layers of blue painters tape but masking tape is fine as well it runs about five bucks three that really flimsy packing foam that you probably have laying around your house somewhere is incredibly effective at noise dampening this was all pretty affordable at around 35 dollars about 10 bucks more than you'd pay for a single sheet of sorbothane and you're left with a ton of leftover materials and this is much more flexible in application and performs better it took less than 20 minutes to do these mods and i didn't even have to remove the caps or the switches to do this and the results are honestly shocking i can't wait to share them but first i gotta give a big shout out to morningbrew for sponsoring today's video i'm a big believer in having a set morning routine because without one i don't really attack my day with any kind of consistency and it starts to affect my overall productivity and one essential piece of that routine for me is morningbrew it's a free daily newsletter delivered to my inbox monday through sunday it takes me just a few minutes to get caught up on everything going on in the world in terms of finance business and tech i start out with some market news international stuff crypto nfts anything going on in the world of tech etc it takes me literally five minutes to get from top to bottom if there's something there that catches my eye and i want to drill down a little bit more i can't stuff like apple privacy features tanking social media stocks or the latest on the coal shortage affecting peripheral manufacturing but more importantly to me if there's not anything there that really grabs my attention i haven't wasted a bunch of time going down a rabbit hole i used to wake up lay in bed and doom scroll all my social media feeds and that's just not it there's way too much opportunity for distraction and to burn up valuable time morning brew is witty it's punchy and it's straight to the point there's really no reason to not subscribe to morning brew if you're interested in business finance or tech and you value your time it's totally free and it takes less than 15 seconds to subscribe click the link down in the description below to sign up today big thanks to morningbrew for sponsoring today and thank you so much for your time that before and after is ridiculous it drastically reduces the amount of ping in this board and takes the entire thing and makes it sound really low and thawky the gadaron tactiles didn't impress me much the first time around either but after the mobs they sound great even stock the only thing is i would probably go back and add some 205 grade zero to the stab housings if i had a syringe but to me it's not even really worth taking the plate assembly apart to do it let's hear it again but with some lubed and filmed gap black inks and a decent pbt set like this tarot which we'll be releasing soon from novel keys to me that sounds great now let's hear it versus the gmmk pro with tuned duroc v2 stabs a case foam from stupid fish same switches same caps so the gm mmk pro there comes a way of sounding really muted and really tight the typing feel is really firm as well those stabs do sound better though after these mods the q1 retained a lot of its flex and while you don't necessarily feel the board flex it's a much more forgiving feeling on bottom out based on sound and typing feel i would choose the q1 if you're willing to and have the budget to do these mods i'd suggest you do the same but if you're more of a person that just likes to grab and go the gmmk pro will probably do you better i'm not a fan of the q1 in its stock form that ping is just too much but it allows a lot more freedom to tune the board to your liking it all comes down to how far you want to go in the hobby it's worth saying too that with the q1 you're losing the side lights the rotary knob and the extra key on the far right column how important that stuff is is up to you on the topic of price the q1 bare bones is 149 plus shipping which is 30 flat so you're 179 all in gmk pro is 169 with free shipping in the us so your situation may be different depending on where in the world you live and to be fair you do have to figure in the cost of those mods if you don't have it laying around so if you're coming in fresh you could be looking at just over 200 for that q1 experience both boards support qmk both use usbc and both still show a little switch under the edge of the case so that's it that's the real final call if you have the budget and you're willing to do the mods i recommend the q1 if you're the type that just wants to buy something and put it on the desk gmmk pro big thanks to alex for the assist on today's video i'll leave all the links to all his stuff down below you'd be doing yourself a favor to go check him out all right any questions hit me in the comments and i'll catch you guys in the next one stay up [Music] you

Channel: BadSeed Tech

Views: 94,446

Keywords: gmmk pro, keychron q1, gmmk pro vs keychron q1, keychron q1 modding, keychron q1 mods, gmmk pro mods, gmmk pro or q1, q1 or gmmk pro, alexotos, badseed, bad seed

Id: qYpSEqGFC-A

Length: 9min 29sec (569 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 31 2021