The Two Delete Keys

It’s pretty obvious that when you select a clip on the timeline and hit the “delete key,” the clip goes away. In editing jargon, that’s called a “lift.”

What some people do not know is that you can also perform a “ripple delete” which not only lifts the selected clip, but also closes the gap left behind (with a warning that will be addressed in a moment). The best shortcut for performing a ripple delete is the “delete forward” key (on a Mac keyboard this is usually found near the home and end keys):

The shortcut SHIFT delete (using the standard delete key) also does this, but why not just get used to using a single key? Mac users underutilize the delete forward key generally (which causes PC types to snicker at us), so why not get it a little dirty too?

If you are used to deleting a clip and then selecting the gap itself and deleting it (sigh) or worse, this shortcut is for you (although we’ll soon discuss CTRL G for closing gaps and the whole exciting family of gap-related shortcuts). Start using the Delete Forward key where appropriate and save yourself a few steps.

Here’s that note of caution: whenever you deal with “ripple edits” (these are any edits that have the effect of moving all clips to the right of them up or down the timeline, essentially affecting the total run time of your piece), you need to be mindful of what’s happening to your audio tracks below. You will be pulling them over as well and that may be fine, but when you are finishing a piece, get in the habit of controlling what does and does not move around in ripple edits by mastering the track locks (which, you guessed it, will be covered in another post). Sometimes you get the cruel and vexing “clip collision” error too.  I’ve found that uncertainty about ripple edits makes many people shy away from them and that’s just not healthy.