add Tracks to Timeline

[Gabriel Spaulding]

There are no tracks in Final Cut Pro X, meaning you’re not forced to target specific areas to place media. For the most part you just put things wherever you want. You can drag media into a Project, or press E to append a file, Q to connect it, W to insert, and D to overwrite (you can also perform back timed edits by holding the Shift key in combination with Q or D). Audio files are automatically placed below the Primary Storyline (the dark stripe in the timeline, generally used for building the spine of your story), video files, graphics and titles are stacked above the Primary Storyline. You can of course rearrange the stacking order at will. I suggest you read up on Roles, which add a whole new level of organizational and structural power, and are particularly useful for audio editing and mixing.

[David Battistella]

Just drag shots, media, images, titles or whatever you want and the “tracks” appear. If you want a more traditional looking “timeline” you can use ROLES and LANES to have things stay in specific places. IE: you could create ROLES called V1 V2 V3 but then media in each one of those lanes would have to be tagged with that ROLE.

The best thing to do with FCP X is dive in, forget about the way you have done things in other apps and feel the fluidity of the interface, it really makes the process of editing much simpler and even pleasurable.

David