These 4 Final Cut Pro Tips Are Too Good

Today you're going to learn some Final Cut Pro tips that totally rock. Four of them, all fast, all free.

1. End your music absolutely anywhere

One of the biggest issues we have as editors is when the music works against us. Want the song to end on a specific downbeat? Park your playhead at that moment and press Shift H to create a hold frame, extending it out a bit. Then apply the Cathedral audio effect to the music, scroll down in the audio panel, add a keyframe, move back two frames, and drop the effect value to zero before that point. Now the song rings out naturally exactly where you wanted it to end. No AI required.

2. Build an intro your song doesn't have

Song has no good intro? Make one out of its ending. Find a reverb hit in the track and cut around it with Command B, right-click the little section and make a compound clip, then Option-drag it to the beginning of the song. Open the retime menu and hit Reverse Clip. Now the reverb swells INTO your song's first beat like it was composed that way. So dumb. So great.

3. My favorite fast-cutting shortcuts

Option Left Bracket eliminates everything left of the playhead; Option Right Bracket kills everything to the right, and everything sucks back together, transitions intact. And for keeping just the middle: press R for the range tool, select the part you like (the camera turning as the car comes around the corner, say), and press Option Forward Slash. Everything on both sides is instantly gone. Massive timesaver.

4. Stop scrolling, start typing

In the effects browser, select any item and just press the first letter of what you're looking for: press F and you jump straight to FCB's really crappy plugins (love you, Dylan). Same in transitions and titles. And when changing a title's font, don't scroll that endless menu: click the font dropdown and type the name. I typed "enter" for my font, pressed enter, done.

That's the four. If they helped, go bother the Final Cut Bro on his channel. He suffers so well. Thanks for reading!