What's next Ryan?

[norbauer]

@donpark

Yup. Typing angle was part of the trail that lead to cradle idea. A flat case with a cradle could in theory allow even negative angles for standing-desk. My informal tests of negative angle with keyboard on my lap, typing experience was amazingly comfortable. Blocker for me was the distance to mouse/trackpad.

I’m actually in favor of negative angles, especially for standing desk use. The goal is generally to avoid extension torque on the wrist joint, keeping the palm roughly in line with the central axis of the forearm. So, yes, the idea of having generally flat-brick board that can be mounted in different ways is the core premise I favor. The slight downside is that each can move independently, so it makes transporting one’s set up a bit more cumbersome, but that’s what owning two keyboards is for.

@donpark

Re acoustics, I do agree that curated acoustics is good enough for most people. But for folks like me, ability to experiment with sound by changing material, sound channel shape, and diffusers would just kick the door open to endless tinkering fun. Sadly, I do realize there may be too little demand to warrant market attention.

I’ve been focusing on the DIY/tinkerer crowd (which includes myself) for as long as I’ve been doing this, and my experience is that, to my sorrow, it’s hard to build a sustainable business around that alone. Despite ever-growing revenues, Norbauer & Co. has never turned a meaningful profit, and last year actually lost me quite a lot of money. If I’m going to be able to continue trying to solve interesting problems and making new designs, I need to find some way to have the business at least pay for itself reliably. (At present, my company is now effectively a charity project serving the keyboard community, paid for out of my personal bank account. And one that takes like 12 hours of unpaid work out of my life every day.)

The Seneca is an attempt to make the best keyboard obtainable, something that a “normal” human (with admittedly deep pockets) can buy, plug in, use, and enjoy for years without having to acquire any technical skills. It isn’t designed to resist tinkering and I have no doubt it’ll provide many such opportunities for creative community members, but it also isn’t optimized for that either. It is designed simply to be good, out of the box. My goal is to try to use this more approachable, super-high-end experience as a way to bring a new crowd of people into the keyboard world while also delivering something awesome to people already deep into keyboards and with very honed sensibilities. It’s the only way I can figure to make a plausibly sustainable business around my somewhat rarefied, over-the-top approach to making keyboards.