Setting Up Your Timeline

Whenever I create a new timeline, I like to immediately perform three keyboard shortcuts to quickly optimize it for maximum convenience. First, I hit OPT W:

This toggles the “clip overlays” on and off.  The default is off, so I turn ‘em on. The overlays allow you to quickly adjust opacity and levels on the video and audio tracks respectively and they’re pretty handy if you like to make little tweaks directly on the timeline as I do. When they’re turned on, you can see the horizontal black line at the top of video clips for opacity and a sort of fuchsia horizontal line across the middle of each audio track.

Next, with my fingers still on OPT W, I add the command key for OPT CMD W:

This toggles on the “waveform display” which adds audio waveforms to the audio clips. I like to have these on most of the time for most simple edits (I mostly do short form work with 6 audio tracks) because I like the quick visual reference as to audio characteristics and it aids in making audio-centric edits. Note however, that if you are working on a very complex, long duration timeline with many audio tracks, you may see some delays as these are “drawn” on each track and the load used to be something of an issue, but nowadays with powerful machines, I rarely have a problem.

Finally, especially if I’m laying down a fresh rough cut, I like to adjust the track height with SHIFT T and you can read a whole FCP Shortcutter article on that shortcut here.