Destination? Powerhouse Shortcutville.

In honor of being linked on the venerable FCP Daily site (for which I am very appreciative and humbled), I want to toss out a full-on “ninja level” shortcut today that is worthy of the hardcore FCP Daily readership, so I’m reaching forward in my schedule to share a real gem: setting source destination for the Timeline. Now granted, this is a an advanced shortcut that works best for those who are already on the shortcuts bandwagon and religiously use the F9 and F10 keys (and their brethren, the F11, F12 and SHIFT F9-11 shortcuts–more on these silver bullets in a future post), but it’s a real doozy and helps dedicated shortcutters avoid “breaking the rhythm” in an otherwise all-shortcut workflow which I think is critical.

The scenario is this: you’ve opened a clip in the Viewer, you’ve trimmed it up with shortcuts and you’re ready to send it down to the timeline, but since maybe it’s a cutaway shot (a common instance), you want the video to go to video track 2 or 3 or some other track and the audio to go to audio tracks 3 and 4 or some other tracks (if stereo pair). The kludgy way to do this would be to grab your mouse and dive down to those GUI tabs (see illustration at left) and futz around with clicking and dragging the source tabs to the proper destination tabs (and clicking them off and on as needed). By this time however, you might sadly wonder if it isn’t just easier to drag the clip from the Viewer straight to the Timline and put it where you want it (realizing that this sloppy clip dragging operation is the stuff of FCP greenhorns).

So how can you finesse this? Use the unorthodox shortcut of first tapping F6 then tapping the number key of the track you want video switched to:

That’s right, you don’t hold F6 while hitting the desired number, you tap them in succession.  It will take a bit of practice and you’re only allowed a second or two to hit them both.  This switches your video track destination to the number you tapped. Play with this for a few seconds and you’ll get the drift.

Now you do the same for audio by hitting F7 for the left (or topmost) channel followed by the desired track number. Then you tap F8 for the right (or bottommost) channel followed by the track number.

There is a catch here though:  you should hit F8 first and move it down before you move the topmost (usually left channel) of audio down because you cannot jump over destinations.  The best way to really understand this is to try it a few times.

The other half of this awesome shortcut is that if you simply want to turn off the destination for audio or video (a common need), you hit SHIFT F6, F7 or F8:

Now that’s a powerful shortcut!  But there’s still a bit more (and a surefire way to improve your trip to NAB in Vegas) if you can stand it after the jump…

Now before you start using this excellent method of switching destination tracks to place a clip on the next video track up with the audio going to the next available tracks down, you must remember to deploy the often forgotten F12 “superimpose” command wherever practical which does this in one fell swoop (adds to track above current destination). We’ll give this shortcut a day of it’s own soon to reinforce, but it must be noted here as even a great shortcut like today’s can be superfluous if you’re not aware of a better way.

The F6/F7/F8 methodology is best used for more complex track switching situations, but I will say this, once you get used to it, you can probably do it as easily as hitting F12 and it will be second nature, so if we’re ever working together on a job someday and I’m looking over your shoulder and see you eschew F12 in favor of the deft usage of this shortcut group, I promise not to yell at you or “accidentally” spill coffee on your mousepad.

Remember this little gem when you’re at the bar of the Reno Hotel and Casino during the upcoming FCP Supermeet and, as you order up a White Russian for that editor or editrix you’ve had designs on since that class at Post Production World, casually mention that their smile is as delightful and effortless as changing destination tracks by hitting F6 then tapping a track number and… well… Let’s just say you may be missing the next morning’s keynote. You can thank me later.