Most of what you hear when you type is not the switches. It is the desk. A hard wooden or laminate surface takes every keystroke and throws it straight back as a hollow echo, and a keyboard that sounds deep and full on a review video turns thin and clattery on a bare desk.

The OZO Cork Felt Keyboard Pad sits between the two. It is a 5.5 mm slab of cork and felt, cut to the footprint of your keyboard, that soaks up the energy the case would otherwise pass into the desk. The hollow note disappears, the bottom-out gets rounder, and the whole board sounds the way it was built to sound. It takes about four seconds to install.

This is a keyboard pad, not a full desk mat. It is sized to the board alone, so it works under a keyboard that sits on top of an existing desk mat, on a keyboard tray, or on a small desk where a 900 mm mat would never fit. The edges are precision cut and stay clean; there is no fraying felt and no cork crumbling into your keyboard.

It comes in two lengths, one for 60 to 80 percent boards and one for 96 to 100 percent layouts, in a plain black that sits quietly under any colourway. The material is natural, eco-friendly and odour-free, so it does not arrive smelling of a factory.