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Complex Trims—
Hey all –
Avid user for many years, now making the switch to FCP. I have had some frustration doing complex trims, especially in that final cut stage where I’ve got 3 tracks of video and 8 of audio, and need to keep them all in synch.
I am trying to trim a few mins out of a complex edit by doing price rolls and trims. I have been finding things falling out of synch constantly, it’s been driving me batty. I find I keep having to duplicate my sequence and then copy and paste in the sections after the area I;ve been working.
In Avid, I keep my tracks on synch lock – it seems FCP doesn’t have a synch lock but it “intelligently” decides what to keep in synch??? I also find I try to add rollers, and it fights with me where it decides to put the rollers – I have been using G to select and edit, the U to position the A/B side. then using the Avid like trim mode. But when I hit U, instead of moving the roller to the right side of the edit, it randomly moves the roller someplace else completely!! Then I use the R tool to manaully select the side I want, but I find if I have a transition on the clip (ex Audio fade up with nothing to the left) to get that roller on the left is sometime impossible. I also can’t seem to slip/slide multiple clips at once – like you can with the Alt – selecting in Avid. Is there a way to do this, or if I want to shorten on slip and simultaneously lengthen another do I have to do this in multiple steps??
Any Avid migrators familiar with really complex trims – the kind that are a breeze in Avid – I’d love to hear your coping tips and techniques for FInal Cut!!!!
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3 Replies
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Avid has a great trim mode…that’s the power of Avid. FCP does not…it is still VERY basic. So what you need to do is FORGET everything you do in Avid…all those workflows and ways of doing things. Because they won’t work in FCP. They are different beasts, they do things differently. So that great muscle memory you have in Avid will only trip you up in FCP. This is why many Avid editor hate FCP. Everything that makes them fast in Avid trips them up in FCP. So you need to learn how to do things in FCP…get new muscle memory.
HOW do you now accomplish what you want to do in FCP. God, how can I describe this in a forum? This is something that needs to be shown.
[Brian Sarfatty] “In Avid, I keep my tracks on synch lock – it seems FCP doesn’t have a synch lock but it “intelligently” decides what to keep in synch???”
FCP has locks too. Autosync locks are those rectangles next to V1 and A1, A2…so on.
You need to find someone who knows FCP to show you how to accomplish what you want to accomplish. But know that it won’t be as elegant as TRIM MODE. I really miss that when I am on FCP, so the stuff I do takes longer. But then there are other things in FCP that I do that are much faster than in Avid. So it’s a give and take…a tradeoff.
Shane
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You will get to where you want to be with FCP, but it won’t be as smooth a road as it is with Avid.
Asymetric trimming in FCP is not implemented well and a pain to use. Basic trims work well but sometimes end with surprises because of FCP’s tendency to keep everything in sync.
Locking tracks temporarily will help too, just for when you trim, until you’re done.
Ah, and I use the BB shortcut (blade All) much more on FCP than I would Add Edit All on Avid.
As Shawn suggests, you have to unlearn some of that Avid stuff, or at least put it on hold.
Patrice
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Hi, search for asymmetric trim in fcp and you will find some help such as https://www.larryjordan.biz/articles/lj_asymmetric.html
Matt.
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