The “Play Around” Key is All Business

One of my all-time favorite shortcuts is the “Play Around” key:

Also known as the “backslash,” this elegant shortcut can save you a lot of mouse work and editing time. When you hit the \ key, your playhead jumps back several seconds from its current position, plays forward and past your original playhead position for a few seconds and then jumps back to the original starting point. This is primarily done at edit points and allows you to quickly evaluate how your edit plays as you trim it.

Play Around is particularly powerful when you are using it in combination with other shortcuts like the Up and Down Arrow keys (which allow you to move from edit point to edit point), various tools like Ripple (RR), Roll (R), Slip (S) and, for maximum ninja mojo, V and U (all of which were tied into a workflow here).

The number of frames that the playhead jumps back and plays beyond the starting point is set to 5 seconds, by default which for me anyway, is a bit too long. To fine tune and supercharge your Play Around key, you can go to the User Preferences panel (please use OPT Q to get there). Go to the Editing tab and here’s what you’ll see:

By adjusting the Preview Pre-roll and Preview Post-roll settings (I like to use 1 or 2 seconds), you’ll set just how far back and forward the playhead will jump. I think this makes Play Around a far more powerful tool as you can customize to your taste or what’s best for the type of project you are editing.

I urge you to start using this shortcut and while it might take a while to get used to it, you will and you won’t remember how you lived without it. Use it with the shortcuts for trimming and you’ll be saving vast amounts of time as you polish a rough cut into a fine cut.

This shortcut was previously discussed on 3/10/2010.