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Avid -> FCP questions
I’m working on learning Final Cut after 10+ years on Media Composer, and am having some trouble with its different way of working with the track panel and selection.
On the Avid, if I needed to pull a track up say, 8fr, I would deselect all tracks, select my target track mark in, mark out 7fr later and hit extract, pulling up whatever tracks I had selected 8fr.
In Final Cut I can delete with the marks but for some reason I can’t ripple delete. To ripple I have to use region select. But that only works for one track. If I want to ripple delete multiple tracks, I have to get out the blade tool and cut at the in and out points, select and delete. Then the whole sequence will ripple unless I lock all of the tracks I don’t want to affect. In the Avid I only have to keep Sync Locks turned off. In FCP I have to lock the tracks out from all changes.
So to recap- I want to extract 8fr from a single video track which crosses an edit.
Avid
Deselect All Tracks (opt-shift-a)
Select V1 and V2
Mark in, +7, Mark out
ExtractFinal Cut
Lock all audio
Lock all video
Unlock V1 and V2
Select Blade
Shift Click In point, Shift Click Out point
Select Arrow
Click V2 Clip
Click V1 Clip
Del
Unlock Audio and Video (optional)Does anyone who has made the transition from Avid to Final cut have any tips for working efficiently with the various tools, locks, autoselects and patches? My style of working on the Avid is very streamlined, I try to use as few clicks and keypresses as possible. It’s easy with the simple style of track selection. If the track is lit, it will be edited. If it is not lit, nothing will happen (with few exceptions).
Do you keep all the locks on and just turn off what you are using? Do you find yourself using marks less and region select more? How do you prefer to trim most of the time, roller? extend? delete?
Also, does FCP have an equivalent to Avid’s Apple-M? This is dragging a box around the section of timeline you want to zoom into, rather than stepping in and stepping out. And I really really wish I could move the playhead by clicking in the timeline and not just that skinny little timecode bar.
Ian
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10 Replies
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shift – delete and use auto selects?
fast edting using keyboard:
Q – toggle viewer canvas
F6 then track number to patch video
F5 then track number to patch audio
F9 insert
F10 overwrite
command 4 – navigate to browser and arrow keys and return to select.zooming – you can hit x to mark clip then hit shift z – tho doesn’t zoom that far.
maybe do a search in keyboard commands to find what you are lloking for.
Jon
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[Ian Johnson] “In Final Cut I can delete with the marks but for some reason I can’t ripple delete”
The DELETE key, above the RETURN key, is the LIFT. The DEL key, above the arrows, is the EXTRACT key. It will close the gap.
[Ian Johnson] “Does anyone who has made the transition from Avid to Final cut have any tips for working efficiently with the various tools, locks, autoselects and patches?”
Yes….learn how FCP works and get a Final Cut Pro keyboard, or key set (www.logickeyboards.com, http://www.kbcovers.com) so you know where the commands are…like Avid keyboards. Look in the KEYBOARD LAYOUT in the TOOLS section so that you can map what you want where.
Get this book: Final Cut Pro for Avid editors
https://www.amazon.com/Final-Cut-Pro-Avid-Editors/dp/0321166493
Go to this website for questions on transitioning to FCP…a bunch of us ex-and-current Avid folks hang out there:
[Ian Johnson] “Do you keep all the locks on and just turn off what you are using? “
No. I turn off the AUTOSELECT boxes (similar to Avid) for the tracks I am not using and don’t want to effect.
[Ian Johnson] “How do you prefer to trim most of the time, roller? extend? delete?”
I use the mouse a lot to drag clips, I make space by moving everything to the right (press T 4 times) and then dragging the edges. Trimming in FCP isn’t as elegant as Avid, but FCP is elegant in many other ways. You just have to know those ways. And I don’t think there is any way to tell you about those in a forum…best shown in person. But don’t know how to do that unless you are in my bay. I am very fast with the way FCP does things, then I get on Avid and feel crippled…things don’t work the same. then I cut on Avid and trim all over and then go back to FCP and feel crippled. You just have to get used to the way FCP does things…that’s all I can say. DO NOT try to make FCP act like an Avid…it simply will not. Know the limitations, and the advantages, and work with them. the book helps.
[Ian Johnson] “Also, does FCP have an equivalent to Avid’s Apple-M?”
Press-Z. Then hold the SHIFT key and drag a box around the area you want to zoom into. Then press A.
[Ian Johnson] “And I really really wish I could move the playhead by clicking in the timeline and not just that skinny little timecode bar. “
Can’t help you there. This is how FCP works. Open segment mode on the timeline. Something you gotta get used to I’m afraid.
Heck…Avid is really cheap now…$2500. Why not get that for home?
Shane
GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD…don’t miss it.
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
I hardly ever use region select – maybe twice in 3-4 years. I’ll have to toy with it, see if I can find a use for it.
I had a heck of a time transitioning from Avid to FCP. Whew, that’d be a long post. After a long hard slog I feel I know FCP almost as well as I do Avid (been using MC since 4.2).
The FCP manuals are actually pretty good (avid’s have sucked since 5.0) so I recommend them. Its possible to remap your FCP keyboard to be very similar to your Avid layout, but I don’t do that. I often have to switch between MC and FCP, even on the same day. Its possible to get close, but not completely, emulate your avid layout, because somethings are just plain different (like audio scrubbing: toggled on/off in fcp, activitated by shift or caps-lock in avid, just to name one), and that subtle difference threw me off. I now prefer to keep the FCP keyboard almost in its default configuration. One of the few keys I changed was CMD-R, which I set to Redo, same as MC.
Don’t bother with FCP’s trim mode, its not worth the effort. Use the rollers. Asymmetric trimming is a bit tough in FCP, and can have odd results.
Also, in FCP unlike avid, you can have many sequences open at once. That means you can undo in a sequence that isn’t visible. You can also edit in a sequence that isn’t visible. For example if you select a clip in one timeline, switch to another, mark-in and out and press delete, you’ll delete the selected clip in the first timeline, not the stuff between the marks.
One of the weirdest things to get used to for me coming from avid is the way selection trumps marks. In other words, in avid, only material between the mark-in and mark-out on the active tracks will be affected, period. In final cut, if you have anything selected, editing operations will affect that regardless of your mark-in and out points. One simply gets in the habit of clicking the empty space on the timeline or pressing CMD-Shift-A to deselect (or is CMD-Option-A?) anything that might be selected before deleting or ripple-deleting.
The biggest advice I can give you is to not try and compare them, or try and force one to be like the other, or get mad because one is different from the other. I like to think of them as two different intstruments. A percussionists can often play both a drum kit and a marimba, but he still had to learn to each on its own terms.
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[Shane Ross] ”
[Ian Johnson] “In Final Cut I can delete with the marks but for some reason I can’t ripple delete”The DELETE key, above the RETURN key, is the LIFT. The DEL key, above the arrows, is the EXTRACT key. It will close the gap.”
The DEL key will extract a clip that is selected, but it won’t extract a marked region, even though it will delete. I thought that was a litle inconsistent.
[Shane Ross] ”
[Ian Johnson] “Also, does FCP have an equivalent to Avid’s Apple-M?”Press-Z. Then hold the SHIFT key and drag a box around the area you want to zoom into. Then press A.”
Thanks, I thought I had tried all the modifiers with the magnifying glass, but I missed SHIFT.
I have a keyboard shortcut reference card from FCP 4, but it may be a little out of date. I looked for one in the box when I upgraded to 6, but I’m not sure they print them anymore.
[Shane Ross] “[Ian Johnson] “And I really really wish I could move the playhead by clicking in the timeline and not just that skinny little timecode bar. ”
Can’t help you there. This is how FCP works. Open segment mode on the timeline. Something you gotta get used to I’m afraid.
Heck…Avid is really cheap now…$2500. Why not get that for home?”
Maybe there could be an option-click or something. I do have Media Composer for home, but there are plenty of FCP only job postings out there.
Ian
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[Lars Fuchs] “Its possible to get close, but not completely, emulate your avid layout, because somethings are just plain different (like audio scrubbing: toggled on/off in fcp, activitated by shift or caps-lock in avid, just to name one), and that subtle difference threw me off. I now prefer to keep the FCP keyboard almost in its default configuration.”
My Avid keyboard is actually setup to emulate a Grass Valley, so it has little in common with the default. It works well for me, but I can’t jump on a system and hit the ground running without loading my settings. I’m not going to make the same mistake with FCP even though it might make it easier.
[Lars Fuchs] ”
Don’t bother with FCP’s trim mode, its not worth the effort. Use the rollers. Asymmetric trimming is a bit tough in FCP, and can have odd results.”This is the part I dread. I can get some complicated multitrack trims going when cutting a :30 promo down to :15, or turning two :15s into a :30 combo. Or pulling up a few frames here and there at the beginning of a spot to free up 15fr at the end.
Mostly it’s like trying to learn to write left handed. The letters are the same shape but they are drawn differently, and I have remaster what I already learned with the right.
Ian
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[Ian Johnson] “This is the part I dread. I can get some complicated multitrack trims going when cutting a :30 promo down to :15, or turning two :15s into a :30 combo. Or pulling up a few frames here and there at the beginning of a spot to free up 15fr at the end.
Mostly it’s like trying to learn to write left handed. The letters are the same shape but they are drawn differently, and I have remaster what I already learned with the right.
“Ian,
“Complicated multitracks”… this is where the “T. T. T. T” command shines. Avid just added this to their feature set and made a big deal about it. FCP has had it forever. Some timelines just defy your ability to do a “clean” trim. In that case, “TTTT”, move the rest of the timeline down, do your trim, slide back. It sounds harder than it is, but Avid wouldn’t have copied this feature if they didn’t feel it was helpful.
Finally, don’t underestimate the time it takes to successfully make the transition. It will be weeks before you feel comfortable on the new platform… months before you actually “understand” the logic behind why it operates a certain way.
Good luck.Mark
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Ian
I treat NL editing pretty much the same way i treated linear offline editing: if you want to pull something up, or push it down, make a copy and “dub over” the previous version, making the edits as you go.
in other words. cut and paste from a previous version to your newest version selectively. you get in less sync trouble, and you always have a copy of the way it used to be. (you also dont have to get to involved in the whole trimming thing)
when i want to do anything to one track, and not the whole timeline aka sequence, I do an “option click” where i hold down the option key whil clicking on the locks, the enables, or the mutes. (and if you want to pull up or push down one vidoe track out of many, you need to lock the other tracks. that goes for audio as well, but Shift f4 locks all video and Shift f5 locks all audio.
to pick up the shortcuts you can leave the keyboard layout window open
somewhere on the desktop, for around 40 bucks US you can get a lminated layout guide from these guys:https://keyguides-2.home.mindspring.com/Pages/kg_edit.html
and here is a free guide:
https://www.nobledesktop.com/shortcuts-finalcutpro5-mac.html
happy crunchin’!
“I like video because its so fast!”
Bob Flood
Greer & Associates, Inc. -
Mark,
I came across this thread via a google search. I’m actually in the opposite situation. I have a FCP brain that I’m trying to wrap around AVID logic. In FCP I am constantly using the Track Selection Tool (TTTT – or just T+shift…shift toggles any tool into the “super tool”). You mentioned that AVID copied this feature. I’m working on a Media Composer (v3.0.5) right now. How can I use that feature? There are many things I miss from FCP, but that’s probably at the top of the list.
Thanks for any help.
Jody
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They have added the buttons to the tool bar on the timeline Jody…here:
you can also map it to your keyboard…I use the F-Keys for this.
Shane
GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD…don’t miss it.
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
awesome…thanks Shane. I have to chop over 2 minutes from my show today and this is going to help out a lot.
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