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Modal editing
Am I the only one who is a fan of modal editing. Everytimes I hear someone put down Avid for it’s modal editing, I want to scream.To me it makes more sense, and the “inconvenience” of switching modes is silly. I can enter segment mode by swiftly pressing F1 (where I have it mapped) or enter trim by lassoing a cut. No faster or slower there than in FCP. I don’t see any slowing there.
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15 Replies
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What do you actualy call “Modal Editing” ? I assume we name it differentely in french because it doesn’t ring a bell.
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Some people criticize Avid’s method of switching between ‘modes’ to edit. Going from the ‘edit’ mode to the ‘trim’ mode to the audio edit mode…. it’s too much for some people.
I personally like it. Properly set up settings do wonders for your speed.
Jon
“The Almighty tells me He can get me out of this mess. But He’s pretty sure you’re F%$#*D!”
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I love it and prefer it over every NLE I’ve every used that didn’t have modes–and Avid’s the only one that seems to!
Why I like it: when I’m editing, I can click anywhere in the timeline to move around. I’m not limited to grabbing a little arrow on the playbar, or lmited to a little playbar track. If I want to move down to an audio cut 3 minutes into my timeline I just click right on the audio clip I want to hear. In Premiere or FCP or Edius–you click on the clip, you might move it. Maybe only a frame or two, maybe a lot more, but you grab that clip and start moving it whether you want to or not. That can screw up a timeline really fast.
I agree with Jon, too. If you set your workspaces up right and find your groove it can be much more productive (at least for me) to jump in and out of modes rather than having access to everything all at one. When I’m in Trim mode, it’s because I am going to trim. That’s it. I don’t want to accidentally trim a cilp when I’m trying to set an In point, and Avid gives me the control I need so that doesn’t happen.
Michael
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I definitely agree with you. For me that is what makes the difference between a real professional NLE and the others. At first I was relly confused with Avid’s logic but now I will never go back to another software.
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I am one of those that sees it as a waiste of time. I have worked on too many NLEs that do not require me to enter and exit a mod to trim. It’s faster to just do it. The goal when writing code for an NLE should be to allow the editor to push as few buttons as possible for each task. For this reason there should be recordable macros for those repeated tasks. I havn’t seen much change in Avid-s interface since ’94 but I have seen other apps grow leaps and bounds. This is why they are no longer the industry standard. I shold not have to lasso to slip. I should not have to go into override mode to slide. I should not have to enter trim mode to trim or select which side I’d like to trim once in that mode. I should just be able to park, hit +10 and an i for in, an o for out, a b for both, ect. Tat said, I’d like to see them fix the bugs before venturing out into features more useful.
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[grinner] “This is why they are no longer the industry standard.”
Are you sure of that ?
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” I shold not have to lasso to slip.”
You don’t have to. place your indicatior bar on the clip you want to slip, and press your trim buttons. you can slip it 1 or 10 frames forward or backward. BAM.
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yes.
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yes. I know just another way to do it.
Still adds keystrokes that do’nt have to be.
I’m wondering what the code wroters on staff actually do each day. I’ve not seen much in 15 years. Biggest development that has come out of Avid in a decade was purchased by them, not written by them. -
From my POV there are annoynaces in all NLEs. I contend that FCP actually IS modal in some functions. It’s just that they do a better job of hiding it. For example, their trim window (a concession to Avid editors) is definitely modal. When you have to double-click clips to open the effects in the viewer, that’s a modal function. Changing timeline modes (open, ganged, synced) is changing modes. It’s just what you get used to. Since modern NLEs run on faster computers, switching modes has become a non-issue. The only trend I’ve seen in the opposite direction seems to be Avid when you are entering/exiting the Capture mode. On some machines this has become incredibly slow.
I have to agree with Grinner, though. The Avid GUI is very long in the tooth. Most of what we deal with today was in there at 4.x and 5.x years ago. The problem is that no matter what Avid does to change or improve the GUI, at least 50% of all Avid users are going to feel alienated. That’s the path they thought they were on with DS and we all see how well that’s gone. I really don’t hold out much hope that we’ll see any real changes.
Sincerely,
OliverOliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com
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