You couldn't type quietly with a manual or an electric. The issue is you needed to hit the ribbon hard enough to transfer the ink from the ribbon to get a good mark. Add to this the fact that with a manual, once you had gone through the ribbon the first time, you would flip the spools around and start typing again. Which needed an even healthier whack to make a mark. And if times were tough and things were hard, you might do that a third time. Or flip the ribbon upside down and type with the red ink. Ribbons had 2 colors of ink on the same ribbon-- black for regular print and a red half used for highlight or emphases.

Manual typewrites do have their own feel. Some brands do have a lighter touch than others and even individual machines would be different. Much like computer keyboards do today. As a very general rule, those machines that had a heavier feel tended to be better for carbons. Electric typewriters removed a lot the variance in feel due to the electric motor operation. And those had very short throws. I've only ever used a couple of electrics, both Seleletric Ball models. They would hit that sum biotchin' ribbon like it really, really meant it. This was because they were "real" office machines and were expected to do a steady diet of carbon copies.

The real fun in office work was when you got make mimeographs. The fussiness of the setup and the mostly sketchy illegible results were always a guaranteed good time. But the buzz you could get from the transfer liquid! I can still remember that smell.