A COLLABORATIVE POST
WRITTEN BY BOOM BOX POST
Our intern, Renata Schmult, is on a mission to expand her keyboard shortcut muscle memory! We drafted up some questions for an office-wide survey to learn about each of our editors’ favorite, most used and custom shortcuts for sound editorial work. It’s interesting to compare everyone’s workflow and shortcut philosophies as there a both many similarities and vastly different approaches. We hope you learn a new shortcut or workflow tip from this post! Enjoy.
Vivian Williams, MPSE
Sound Effects Editor
Your favorite shortcut?
The zoom memory shortcuts. Programming my favorite zoom presets and then using those instead of hitting R and T a million times.
Your most used shortcut?
Delete fades, it's a custom shortcut I had to program myself, but is probably my most used shortcut beyond the classic asdfg.
Most underrated shortcut?
X is the most underrated shortcut for beginners. It allows you to keep your hand in place whenever you need to delete something. As long as you're aware it is also a cut function, so don't use it if you have something copied you're planning on pasting. OR maybe copy and paste gain levels (Ctrl Shift C, Ctrl Shift V), I love that shortcut and I don't think anyone else uses it.
Shortcut you wish existed?
I wish there was a way to click a button to change your fade presets. I sometimes want full frame fades, and sometimes want super tiny fades depending on what I'm cutting. But when you pull up the fades window, you have to physically click the presets to change it, I wish I could just hit the number 1,2,3,4,5 to change to my desired preset.
Bonus: Do you have a favorite custom shortcut?
BONUS: I already said my favorite, but my second favorite is all my shortcuts between my tools. I switch in and out of the hand grabber tool 3 million times a day hahaha.
Your favorite shortcut?
”-” to Toggle on / off automation lines. Can't tell you how many hours have been saved utilizing this quick key!
Katie Jackson, MPSE
Sound Effects Editor
Your most used shortcut?
Command S - you can never save too many times
Most underrated shortcut?
Command 9 (playback at custom speed) Depending on the kind of project this can be SO helpful to listen for sync in at a slow speed or to get through a ton of content at a faster speed and find something quickly!
Shortcut you wish existed?
I wish there was a shortcut or the ability to tab between multiple open PT sessions at a time (like having a multiple tabs in a browser) without having to close, save, and open!
Bonus: Do you have a favorite custom shortcut?
I’ve never customized any of my shortcuts!
Brad Meyer, MPSE
Supervising Sound Editor
Your favorite shortcut?
Control+Click. I use this ALL THE TIME to snap clips to a desired spot on my timeline.
Your most used shortcut?
Command S. I save after almost every keystroke. Gotta save your work!
Most underrated shortcut?
Command T. This deletes any part of a clip outside of the highlighted section.
Shortcut you wish existed?
Whatever the opposite of accidentally hitting "Y" is haha.
Bonus: Do you have a favorite custom shortcut? If so what's the keyboard shortcut you have set up?
I made custom shortcuts to coalesce and convert to clip gain and volume automation. Those shortcuts are Command Shift + and Command Shift -
Jayson Niner
Sound Effects Editor
Your favorite shortcut?
My favorite shortcut might be Shift Control Option 3 which creates a clip with a 1000 Hz sine wave. I'm not using this all the time, but it makes creating 2 pops so easy.
Your most used shortcut?
It might not be my absolute most used, but I use Control Command C (copy all automation) and Option Command V (special paste repeat to fill selection) to quickly copy all the volume, panning, and plugin automation on tracks and easily paste them to selection elsewhere.
Most underrated shortcut?
I'm not sure if it's underrated, but I'll say Command U (strip silence) which brings up the strip silence window. I use strip silence to clean up clips with a lot of repetitive elements and lots of silence in between like footsteps, wing flaps, punches, etc.
Shortcut you wish existed?
Easy answer. DELETE ACTIVE GROUPS. I make a lot of groups when I'm predubing to allow automating builds easier, but eventually I need to delete the existing groups to make new ones. As far as I know the only way to delete these groups is to click the arrow in the groups menu and select "Delete Active Groups" If there is a way to make a custom shortcut for this I haven't found it, but it would save a lot of time.
Bonus: Do you have a favorite custom shortcut? If so what's the keyboard shortcut you have set up?
My favorite custom shortcut is just "Delete" which I have set to Control Shift D. With this shortcut I can highlight over clips and delete all fades, but I can also select tracks that don't contain any clips and also delete them easily.
Kyle Stockbridge
Office Manager
Your favorite shortcut?
Shift Ctrl K to open the Keyboard Shortcuts window. JK JK…
My favorite is probably Opt Click to snap clips to my selection. The amount of time I used to waste manually dragging every clip around on the timeline was embarrassing.
Your most used shortcut?
It’s a custom one: Shift 1 to show/hide the color palette. I don't have enough screen real estate to keep it open all the time and also with this shortcut the color palette appears wherever my mouse is for extremely quick color coding!
Runner up: I'm always using Ctrl Cmd T (or the R and Y variation) which extends a clip's head and tail handles to the full length of the clip.
Most underrated shortcut?
Sync Point workflow which is “Cmd ,” (command + comma) to set the point. Shift Opt Click to snap the clip to your selection AT THE SYNC POINT.
Runner up: Ctrl Opt T which time-locks all selected clips. This is great for time-locking guide tracks and for moving clips to new tracks; I don't have to worry about holding option. Regular “lock clips” is a pain because you get a dialogue box every time you try to make an edit change to a locked clip.
Shortcut you wish existed?
As Jayson said, I cannot believe there's no shortcut or way to set a shortcut to delete groups. There needs to be a way to customize that!!
Bonus: Do you have a favorite custom shortcut? If so what's the keyboard shortcut you have set up?
Since I don't use the smart tool, I customized the shortcuts for selecting the exact trim and grabber tools I want. Without customzing these, it shuffles through the other types of trim and grabber tools every time you hit the shortcut… which is SO annoying. No more wasted time shuffling through the tools to get to the right one:
Cmd Ctrl 2: selects the TCE trim tool.
Cmd Ctrl 4: selects the Object grabber tool.
Cmd 2 (and) 4: selects only the standard trim/grabber tool without shuffling through
Renata Schmult,
Boom Box Post Intern
Your favorite shortcut?
Ctrl Shift C and Cmd V to copy and paste clip gain
Your most used shortcut?
It's probably a tie between Cmd S and Cmd Z to save and undo
Most underrated shortcut?
R and T to zoom in and out
Shortcut you wish existed?
I would love to see a shortcut that opens plugins in the audio suite.
Bonus: Do you have a favorite custom shortcut? If so what's the keyboard shortcut you have set up?
Shift 2 to make my memory locations window pop up! At home I don't have the number pad on my keyboard
Jennifer Bonilla
Boom Box Post Intern
Your favorite shortcut?
Shift Spacebar to watch things in slow motion
Your most used shortcut?
Cmd Z and Cmd D to undo and duplicate
Most underrated shortcut?
Cmd M to mute — I use it to decide whether or not I like the sound mixed with everything else
Shortcut you wish existed?
Before creating one, I used to wish there was a shortcut to bring up the color palette (thanks kyle!)
WE’D LOVE TO know YOUR ANSWERS TO THESE SHORTCUTS QUESTIONS below IN THE COMMENTS!
If you enjoyed this blog, check out these:
LUNCH AND LEARN: ADVANCED PRO TOOLS SHORTCUTS YOU MAY NOT KNOW
PERCEIVING SOUND EFFECTS AS COLORS
RECREATING CLASSIC CARTOON SOUND EFFECTS