A Cheap Programmable Macro Pad Keyboard from Aliexpress 

I'm not looking to spend £200 on a stream deck so this can be the perfect solution! Thank you very much for sharing, love your tech videos as always

Last week I watched 'explaining computers' watering his plants. Now I'm watching 'atomic shrimp' programme a key pad. It's a funny old world ! Thanks for the varied content lads : )

You wouldn't believe it, last week I spent untold hours looking for those relegendable keycaps. Could NOT find them. (I have a PLC programming terminal from the mid 1970s - an Allen-Bradley 1770-TA - which uses a membrane keypad and I hate it. Considering making a proper keyboard for it.)

this is the exact kind of thing i've had on my mind recently but the pricepoint for these that are aimed at streamers really threw me off - you really opened up a lot more possibilities with this video so thanks a million :)!

Though I use different software, I have equal utility for something like this and will likely replicate most of your keymapping for my video editor to start with and go from there. Incidentally, as you get more used to your key layout, you may find it helpful to place a dot of clear nail polish on the center key to help orient your fingers over the keys (like the nubs on "F" and "J" with most QWERTY keyboards).

huh. Y'know I've been thinking about getting like, an elgato stream deck, but I'm really not willing to pay something like, $300 for one. This may be a valid alternative! Thanks for the idea!

I was wondering why this video had 6 views since it was in my recommended and then realized it was just posted before I got the notification lmao

I'm astounded by whole 'painting of a man painting a painting' thing going on with the editing involved in showing your editing. Inception level stuff haha.

You should have installed a: "that kind of information you should never share with a stranger on the internet"-button

i've never seen those changeable- user designable, keycaps before. they're brilliant.

You are so experienced on so many different skills, i honestly can't comprehend it. Nice video.

I've only edited a handful of videos so never really got used to many keyboard shortcuts, the mouse has been used almost exclusively for most of the time, however if I was editing 2 or 3 videos a week I would certainly want to use something like this ! In fact this short video gave me a whole new appreciation for keyboard shortcuts that made me realise just how much more convenient they are !

The most helpful macro programming for Davinci Resolve I have encountered. Much appreciated and extremely helpful. Big Thanks. To add to my previous comment. I've just purchased an Aliexpress budget keypad. I'm in the process of programming keypad and I'm using your video to help me complete said task.

Surprisingly effective video editing tutorial as well here, I never knew about ripple cut start/end! I might have to get one of these keypads so I don't have to pull up a guide to remember such useful functions with mind boggling "shortcuts". Then MAYBE I'll actually get to editing some of the terabytes of audio, video, and photos I have sitting around, waiting for a hard drive crash

Quite happy to see another Resolve user in the wild. Chose that when work wanted to make a video because it's free, and didn't regret much (only running out of GPU memory when trying to run Fusion titles and keyframe high-res photos on my underpowered laptop). It's darn nice software!

This is brilliant! I love your cheap review videos!

Interesting application, i didnt know this keycaps existed. will definitely look into that.

I have been looking launchers like this for some time now. Thanks for the video!

You and Jim Browning are my favourite content creators.

Whoa I’m early! I’ve been looking for a budget keypad recently, so I actually might pick this one up. Great video :))

This is so useful, was looking for something like this but only found expensive stuff. Thank you Atomic schrimp!

I would love to see this as a series for other things from ali

For workstations that are a bit more single use, those cash register keyboards are a nice solution, too. They contain a load of recappable keys sometimes in addition to a normal letter part or just on their own. Just need to double check that they are reprogrammable and don't have a fixed mapping.

Love the razor blades. Adds a lovely juxtaposition to the video. Thank you and have a good day sir.

Always interesting and informative. Keep up the good work fella and stay safe.

Brilliant! I used something similar when starting streaming, a wireless numpad that I assigned shortcuts to in the program, somewhat reverse of what you did here, but then I didn't need to use the keyboard with that program. Reminded me of Ziggy from Quantum Leap

I have 0 realistic ways of implementing this yet very much want it.., thank you as always Mr. Shrimp

Need a short cut for your teleport function.

This gave me so much good ideas as I use resolve also. I have a stream desk which I plan to use for resolve. But the shortcuts I did not know about until now, so thanks :) The keypad itself seems really nice actually as well. Lots of uses for sure.

Very creative use of this keyboard! I'll have to try something similar sometime.

These are great - I use a tiny 4-key one for my Zoom session for work and have mute, share, chat and camera as dedicated hotkeys. Super handy.

Been considering this for a few months from AliExpress - thanks for the review! Hoping this works with Karabiner Elements!

My own personal solution was the XP-Pen AC19, which is actually a £25 remote control for touch screen tablets. It only has 9 programable keys, but you can setup three different "pages" for a total of 27 keys, using a 10th key to switch between pages. Neat features, but it sort of makes it difficult to add legends. But it has a rotating dial, which can be used to scrub the timeline and that is extremely useful. I also like that you can set up key pages for different applications and the software will automatically switch to the one you're using. The remote feels pretty cheap, but that's probably because it is. It's wireless and runs off AAA batteries (not a fan of not being able to use it wired, but hey, wireless is good). Definitely recommend it.

Thanks for the links to the keycaps, I've been looking for something like that for a while now, strange I looked of Ali Express but couldn't find anything, I probably didn't have the right search terms!

I love this! I could do with one of these. It’s the kind of thing that an app would be suited to, some custom on screen buttons that trigger key press events on the desktop (maybe via Bluetooth or local network.) The icons look really nice too, reminded me of a game called “Captain Blood” on Atari/Amiga computers.

well done. EXACTLY what we needed for both Video editing and gaming.

Wow, this is very cool.

the pattern on your top is lovely

I'm a programmer and I think I'd find something like this really useful too. In visual studio pretty much every combination of alt ctrl and shift with keyboard keys is assigned to some shortcut and it would be literally impossible to memorise it all

Awesome! I always thought the 'StreamDeck' was expensive for what it really is, I think I'm gonna get one of these in addition to what I got to fulfil my needs. I wanted some shortcut buttons for things in OBS Studio and some rotary pots for controlling volume levels of things, so I got a mini MIDI control surface, a Akai Professional LPD8, which as 8 pads and 8 control knobs, which I can load the midi plugin for OBS and use them to control things in real time... but I think I'm gonna get one of these little macro keyboards for other stuff! Very nice :3

Very intuitive video and easy to understand. 👍

I REALLY like your select after and select before the head buttons. Personally I'd make adding shift select all, but I like combo keyboard shortcuts myself, so all of these would be a numberpad using a mode button, if I were to get this. And I honestly just might get two of these and use one for editing and another one for graphics. Always kind of ignored streamdecks and whatnot for their costs.

For me, I would want something to control the behaviour of the playhead. I like switching back and forth between having the playhead stop when I hit pause and returning to where it started, before playback. It's really good if you're looking for a very specific spot to place a cut in a clip in the time line. It would actually be helpful, as I often have to look up the shortcut to do this, because I often forget.

man i love this channel

Similar to my old gaming key pad from 15 years ago. The one i still have is nicely shaped to your hand. Lots of micros too. It cost about £40 back then.

love the colour scheme of the caps you made

This could be great! I've looked into streamdecks and the likes for music production and streaming...it could be much cheaper to have one of these..and to be honest at the price maybe even 2 of them for separate applications. Really helpful video! Thank you for the upload. Also as a little extra idk if you'll get around to reading this but I've been a long term viewer of the channel yet never really commented. Love your content, keep up the good work!

Always love your content.

Just wanted to say thank you for including the software you used to get this working. I've bought a 6 button + knob macro keyboard from Amazon and it has NO support whatsoever and every input results in an output of "c". Going to try Via out to see if this product just wasn't programmed at manufacture or if it's a proper duff product, but your video succeeded where a google search failed (your video was the only different result from macro coding programs with the search parameters used).

Oooh. Might have to have a look at one of these for my Blender stuff. Then again the shorcuts are pretty embedded in my muscle memory already. Looks really neat, good job! I got a mini little Davinci lesson, too. Thanks!

Great vid! I used to have a Nostormo Speedpad (10-27 buttons, wheel, toggle and slider) for gaming that I profiled for my work (surveying) software. Interesting experience.

Nice idea and as a complete noob in video editing cool too see how you work as well. Thanks for sharing! :)

I wasn't aware IKEA made keyboards! You learn something every day.

I just got the speed editor for resolve, it came free when i paid for the studio version, makes editing in the cut and edit pages so much easier with the jog wheel instead of using the mouse. But this is such a good idea compared to a stream deck

thinking about the shrimp-ception of editing a video with the keyboard demonstrating the keyboard editing a video

Love your work!!! Big fan!

That all knowing might Shrimp does it again! He seems to know how do to..well..everything! 🙌

Most programs that I use day to day primarily edit text, so my preferences are coloured by that. I prefer to memorize keyboard shortcuts or to reconfigure them to resemble sets of shortcuts I am already familiar with. I haven't seen the same problems you (may) have with software updates, but then I guess I'd find a workaround of writing down all my preferred changes (which I understand is the work you're trying to avoid in the first place).

Excellent looking device

I didn't know I needed one of these until I saw this.

Love the outtro music

RU-vid recommendations being actually useful

I have been looking for something like this! I just ordered the kit in black, including a bunch more relegendables for my keyboard; I fucking love customization. The store selling the Keycaps was super nice, I sent them a message about overly expensive shipping and they slashed it for me entirely and gave me an additional rebate, I bought 130 standard Keycaps and 10 longer ones for shift and such, only paid $35 for the whole bunch with shipping.

Editing a video is Resolve as i watched this, looks like a really cool tool and I may have to pick one of these mini keyboards up. For functions I would add / change for my use case having a button to add the default transition onto a clip would be great, lots of fades between things and using an audio fade between clips for less of a drastic change. Something that there isn't a default hotkey for but could be of great use with a Macro would a simple key press to add a text layer into your timeline.

great job with the cut out of the labels. i think it looks very nice.

This is neat! I want to do the same thing with lua macros & autohotkeys to reprogram spare keyboards i have. just haven't had the time or space to figure that out yet. I have done this for Vegas using the Razer Tartarus. I use that for more than just editing, but mostly for editing. The scroll wheel is now like a must have for me lol

Might get one of these to my mom. She can never remember basic shortcuts and it'd be a more elegant solution than the post-it note i glued on her laptop

I like this idea - I might use it for 3D modeling in Blender, where there are so many shortcuts.

If I had one, I don't think I'd use Copy, Paste or Undo. Those key combos are so thoroughly ingrained in muscle memory after so many years, I'd probably end up moving my hand back to the full keyboard to hit Ctrl+C every time.

You're only just telling me now that the "place on top" function exists‽ That's so incredibly useful, wow!

One of the reasons I liked Vegas Pro so much back when I had access to it is that the key commands all made sense. S for split, etc.

Does this register in the device manager as a separate device that sends unique signals that could be picked up by a program (other than the VIA application) like AutoHotKey?

Beautiful.

A very useful key, especially when you have select forward/backward keys, is “deselect all”

This is really cool, I have been debating on attempting to make something like this using my 3D printer.

I do the same with Premiere and with my QWE, ASD keys. Cut, Trim forward, trim backwards, ripple delete (delete gap / delete selection and close gap), etc. This has cut down on my editing time drastically. I also wrote a little Autohotkey script so I can use middle mouse button to pan on the timeline.

I got a similar 9 key pad that has 3 "layers" in it's programming. It has saved me untold hours of repetition. The biggest benefit of the programmable board is it doesn't make mistaken keypresses in long strings of characters so one correct press results in perfect execution. Anyone with repetitive tasks should have something like this

I'd love an update video on how you get along with the keyboard after a certain amount of time.

I have no need for this as I don’t do video editing but I really enjoyed watching anyway! Like all your videos I just enjoy your style :-))

Nice little project 👍👍

Very nice hardware option. I'm also looking at options like StreamPi...maybe I'll end up doing both.

I myself use a second keyboard but it is harder to find and remember macros with just letters. Very interesting way to this

thats really nice and smart i like it

That's pretty cool actually, I could do with one of these keyboard for when I edit or work on my cnc programme. Hey Mike, I have a small video idea for you. Have you ever tried growing things hydroponically? Perhaps tree's (apple and lemons are the ones I have going right now) and other non short term edible greens? I started my cheap setup by buying things from Aliexpress it's compact, can be grown in the window and apart from changing the water once every 2/3 weeks quite mess free.

This seems like a good approach if you have a single application for the keypad, as it sounds like you do. One advantage of the StreamDeck is that it can be configured for multiple applications. I would like a keypad that works for OBS as well as for a video editor, though I haven’t felt I could justify the cost of a StreamDeck for this. Perhaps the solution is to buy two of these units and configure one for each application. The trouble with this approach, of course, is that it increases clutter.

AliExpress has a lot of neat and useful stuff. Hope you make more videos on things you can buy from there.

Perfect use case for this product. For me a Stream Deck is good as I use Bitfocus Companion rather than the bundled software. It allows me to send OSC commands to the software I use

I think this could be good for gaming (especially if you assign the buttons to name code's that aren't on a keyboard). I'd definitely move the GPS commands from FS19 on it.

Thanks for key caps link. Cheers! S

Morning Mr. Shrimp well it's morning here. Hey quick question....would you have any suggestions on a video camera? Basically I just want to make how to HVAC videos for my younger employees to keep them from just guessing. Great video keep up the awesome work 👍

오.. 이런 형태의 24key 제품이 있으면 너무 행복할 것 같습니다. 좋은 정보 고마워요

Im literally learning things about video editing that i didn't learn or don't remember from graphic design classes in college and highschool.

This upload reminds me of another favourite RU-vidr of mine - Chyrosran22 Everything from the subject matter, soothing voice, glorious accent and old-style video production technique are similar.

Awesome stuff

Those really thin and flexible USB cables are nice for syncing but they usually won't carry a full load of current for charging a battery.

Awesome video straight to point and use case and no bs. It is a bit pricy for my liking tho but other than that it is awesome

I do audio production primarily and this seems like it could be helpful. Might look into it. Thanks, AS.

ha! I have a razor Tartarus that I need to configure for this exact purpose. this is amazing thank you for this video

With the growing need to one hand certain things, especially with cursor keys, I'm surprised we haven't really seen a lot of square keyboards. My thumb can easily access an entire area below spacebar level.