[Simon Ubsdell]

[Scott Witthaus] “Closer to the functionality that you show in Premiere?”

Well, yes, of course. But my point is that you have to compare like with like, which I don’t think you are doing.

Which of these two is more cluttered?

I’d say there’s nothing in it, although arguably there is slightly more cruft hanging around the FCP X interface than in Premiere’s.

Simon Ubsdell
tokyo productions
hawaiki

[Simon Ubsdell]

[Scott Witthaus] “that cluttered, “fiddley” Premiere interface”

Are we really saying that this:

is more cluttered and fiddly than this?

Or does it not more depend on what panels you choose to have open at one one time in either application?

As has been pointed out before, any FCP X window configuration can easily be recreated in Premiere, so to say that FCP X layouts are preferable seems like a curious claim.

I’m not arguing for the superiority of either application (I like/hate them both) but I can’t see the justification for your comment.

Simon Ubsdell
tokyo productions
hawaiki

[Simon Ubsdell]

[Oliver Peters] “What I have always heard is that the original Avid design was based on where your left and right hands rest on the keys. That’s how we got JKL, for example, which everyone has followed ever since.
“

I think there’s a good case to be made that the AVID (default) mapping is the most efficient for working exclusively with the keyboard (though it’s not without anomalies). I sense that there was a lot of clever thinking that went into it that other NLEs haven’t ever matched. My gripe is that there seems to have been a lot of laziness here.

Simon Ubsdell
tokyo productions
hawaiki

[Simon Ubsdell]

I completely agree.

Premiere’s shortcuts are just bizarre.

I think I’d have to nominate Cmd-Shift-E as the worst of the worst. Not only is it using two (!) modifiers for a function primary enough it deserves an unmodified keystroke, but it’s also a very uncomfortable single-handed action.

Simon Ubsdell
tokyo productions
hawaiki

[Simon Ubsdell]

[Andrew Kimery] “Currently w/my PPro layout I’m up to about 40 programmed keys on my G13 and 6 on my mouse.”

Thanks to some of your previous posts about this, I started thinking about using a dedicated hardware solution too.

A while back I started using the AVID Artist Transport (now obsolete but still available from some suppliers), which has roughly 50 programmable keys and works well across a variety of applications.

The major bonus is the very nicely engineered jog wheel which can be programmed to all sorts of functions besides jog – this is probably my favourite feature.

For many tasks the Artist Transport is a really great solution. I’ve got it paired with the Artist Mix as well which makes for a very powerful combination. It’s still a tricky question how best to map everything, whether to try and achieve some sort of conformity between applications, and indeed what functions are best not mapped to it.

However, one wider point I would make here is that pretty much no input device is perfect for every task, even within one application.

For example, when I’ve got a day of rotoscoping or retouching ahead of me, the Wacom gets plugged straight in and nothing gets the job done faster or more precisely. But at any other time, I simply don’t find it an efficient way of working at all.

Similarly, a trackpad is a much better input device than a mouse for scrolling through a newspaper article, but in lots of cases it’s very inefficient.

The mouse is a pretty awful and antiquated device, but for many tasks it still comfortably outperforms anything else. And for many tasks, the keyboard is streets ahead of anything else for speed.

It’s very easy to get seduced by a input device and start thinking that it provides advantages across the board, when in fact it may well be slowing you down in respect of a lot of important tasks.

Simon Ubsdell
tokyo productions
hawaiki

[Simon Ubsdell]

[David Lawrence] “I think you’re being cranky.”

You’re right of course.

But interestingly no-one has stepped up and claimed that any of these default shortcuts is a good idea.

Everyone, it seems, is using an alternative method to avoid having to be stuck with the defaults.

Which suggests that I’m cranky but not wrong.

😉

Simon Ubsdell
tokyo productions
hawaiki

[Simon Ubsdell]

But worse by far than bad keyboard defaults are operations that you can’t map to the keyboard at all.

FCP X has probably the most shocking example of this of any NLE.

I’m sure you know what it is.

Simon Ubsdell
tokyo productions
hawaiki

[Simon Ubsdell]

Doesn’t work for zooming out.

Plus it means your right hand is having to collaborate in the zooming process instead of being able to be performing some parallel action.

Simon Ubsdell
tokyo productions
hawaiki

[Simon Ubsdell]

[Bill Davis] “First world problems candidate?”

I have to say I love this.

I mean it’s not as if this whole forum or indeed the whole world of digital editing isn’t a first world problem of the highest order.

But is’s good to know that using a Magic Something Or Other returns it to a real world issue.

😉

Simon Ubsdell
tokyo productions
hawaiki

[Simon Ubsdell]

[Bill Davis] “Voila – Mouse completely unnecessary and my fingers hardly leave the home row during editing. “

That sounds fun though I can’t exactly visualise it.

However, it doesn’t address my point which is that NLE manufacturers including Apple persist in very poor keyboard layouts, reflecting the fact that nobody is actually thinking hard enough about this stuff.

(For me, trackpads and touch bars and Magic This and Magic That are total anathema [my aged hands ache whenever I try to use them for any length of time above 1 minute], but that’s again another story and not the subject I was raising here.)

Simon Ubsdell
tokyo productions
hawaiki