FCP: Audio Levels Keyboard Shortcut

Keyboard shortcuts are one of the things that make you a faster and better editor.

With that being said, one of the most useful shortcuts I know is not one I see used as frequently as it should — the keyboard command to adjust the volume of a clip in the timeline:

<CTRL and +  > This will increase the volume of a clip by 1 db

<CTRL and –  > This will decrease the volume of a clip by 1 db

<CTRL and ]  > This will increase the volume of a clip by 3 db

<CTRL and [  > This will decrease the volume of a clip by 3 db

Using these commands to adjust the volume of a clip is much more precise than trying to use the keyframe display on a clip and much quicker than opening each audio clip up individually. If no clips are selected when using this command, the audio where the playhead is on the timeline will be adjusted.  If you highlight a clip, only that audio will be adjusted, regardless of where the playhead is.

Another nice feature of this shortcut is you can highlight multiple clips and make the same adjustment to all of them with one keystroke.  This is useful when you have cut two adjoining scenes at separate times and find the audio levels shift from one to the other.  Simply highlight all of your audio and use the command to universally bump those levels up or down.

With this functionality, I find that it is advantageous to not use the pen tool to keyframe audio.  I prefer to simply place a cut in the audio track and then add a cross-dissolve to the cut.  Using this method makes it much easier to tweak and adjust the audio as the cut develops.  It is much easier to make a cross dissolve longer or shorter and the audio louder or softer using the keyboard shortcut than it is to adjust and readjust keyframes as the cut’s length changes.