…or “How a chance accidental encounter with a new Final Cut Pro 7 shortcut brought both an ebb and tide of emotions…”

So I was performing at work in my new role, filling in as an online editor, stressful for me, very stressful, but stress can teach you new limits, better than real pain maybe, I’ve heard pain is weakness leaving your body, while being punched, hard…  by a good friend.

Anyway, STRESS!  And so these days twice a week I’m editing in a new way, focusing on exact levels of sound, tuning it by ear, the show you’ll see on TV, last touched by me, the online editor.

And my hotkey for making the audio overall just slightly louder isn’t working…  Why the hell isn’t it working?  What the f-uck!>

And so I’m trying to figure it out, stressed, pissed off.

So this is what was going on.  Normally, there’s a hotkey for making the sound levels of an entire clip louder in equal amounts across the entire clip.  So every part of the clip gets louder (or of course quieter if you wish), and it’s across the board the same amount of change in volume, from start to finish. (i.e. +/- 1 db)

However, when as an online editor you’re doing your thing, you have to constantly change the audio levels, ride the levels, I really have no clue how to properly and in real-time ride levels, I’ve never learned on an analog board, I rarely have an analog board to practice on, as of this posting I can probably ride audio levels probably only a little bit better than riding a mechanical bull.  But I CAN manipulate the audio levels via sliders in the timeline.

So let’s say, for example, I have a clip where there’s a dog barking near the camera in my footage, and next the dog is running towards some random unsuspecting guy at full sprint.  The dog runs through the guy’s legs at top speed, but manages to clock him in the junk nice and solidly… I know, funny/sad, right?  Anyway, buddy falls to the ground in a heap, and then moans hysterically for 20 seconds, mixed in with high volume staccato yelps of anger and utter amazement, directed towards said dog, who’se run off into the distance…  Anyway…

The point is the sound levels would be constantly changing in this ridiculous moment caught on camera.  Sound-wise, the camera microphone (and your speakers playing back what I’ve edited) would contain sounds of loudness (barks), quietness (moaning), loudness (anger/yelling), etc.

So if you were to mix all this sound during an online session, you would make sure the barking didn’t blow the speakers, and that the moaning could be clearly heard by bringing up the levels significantly.

IF YOU WISH TO GO DOWN A BIT  OF A RABBIT HOLE IN AUDIO KEY FRAMING, READ THE NEXT PARAGRAPH…

ELSE: SKIP TO NEXT ———->

Well, for those that don’t edit audio in real time, you can still mix using the function “keyframes”, where you mark points within a clip that either start, or end, a change in sound levels.  One of the issues with keyframes is when they are too close together, or are occurring too frequently.  This often happens as a result of real-time riding of audio levels using a sound board/sliders.  The fact is, when using sliders to mix in real time, until you completely take your hand off of a slide controller or are completely still while holding a level, you’ll always be constantly affecting Final Cut Pro’s setting of keyframes within a clip, constantly changing the levels ever so slightly… This creates dozens of keframes within a clip, instead of a manageable 2, or maybe 4, maybe 6, etc.  When mixing audio in real time editing, the keyframes are constantly changing, dozens of times over the course of even a song’s at most 4, 6, or 8 different changes in significant volume…  Lost anyone yet?  The point is, if there just a couple keyframes of audio level changes, it’s very easy to then use certain tools to change the audio levels of specific parts of a clip.  When there’s dozens and dozens of keyframes, it’s impractical, or too time consuming, to make use of the keyframe audio functionality in Final Cut Pro.

<——————NEXT————>

So, to summarize, there are at least 2 ways to affect the audio levels of a clip.  Overall affect the entire loudness/quietness of clip, or just affect specific sections.

Anyway, back to BEING ANGRY…  (in the start of the story).

So I’m angry, the overall sound levels aren’t frickin’ changing, they’re instead weirdly only partially changing only sections of the clip, not the entire clips.

Turns out, I’d accidentally mapped GAIN (ADJUST) instead of the hotkey GAIN, and until that moment I had no idea what the difference was between the two.

So I then suddenly realized that “gain (adjust)” is a hotkey that will raise or lower a part of the clip that has been marked with keyframes.

What I at first thought was a malfunction, turned out to be something that made me go… “SWEET!”, because in the past, to gain (adjust) the manual way, without a hotkey, was quite time consuming and finicky.  It involved expanding the timeline to make the space to move the audio levels larger and more responsive.  Sounds complicated, and kinda is.  Now I just press one key, no need to expand and using the mouse to press and change things.  One key instantly makes that section, and that section only of the clip, into either 1 db or -1 db than its previous level.

DING!  The light went off in my head… “This is a great discovery in some ways”.  Not curing cancer great, but still great.

My anger, instantly lifted into happiness.  All learning really can be this way I bet, if I employ a certain perspective.

So I told one of the other onliners at work, Jordan, about the discovery, he liked it…  Now I’m going to see how many more I can find even more hotkeys/functions, for myself at least, and even ask others for their favourite or most useful ones…