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Chapter 42 Mixing Audio in the Timeline and Viewer 623
VIII
Using the Command Key to Gear Down Adjustment Speed
In Final Cut Express, items you drag onscreen normally move at the same speed at
which you move your mouse across your work surface. When you’re dragging the audio
level overlay, this usually works just fine. However, you can drag even more precisely by
pressing the Command key after you start dragging an item.
If you hold down the Command key while dragging the audio level overlay, the overlay
moves much more slowly, and its numeric value changes in much smaller increments.
This is especially valuable when mixing levels in the Timeline, where the small height of
clips can make precise level adjustment difficult.
Note: The Command key works with nearly any dragging operation in Final Cut Express.
Creating, Modifying, and Deleting Keyframes in the Viewer
The keyframe controls are located next to the slider controls in the Viewer.
 Level Keyframe button: The keyframe button to the right of the Level field places a
keyframe on the audio level overlay at the current playhead location. You place
keyframes on the audio level overlay in preparation for creating a dynamic change in
the level when you’re mixing.
 Level keyframe navigation buttons: These buttons, to the left and right of the Level
Keyframe button, allow you to move the playhead forward or backward from one
keyframe on the audio level overlay to the next.
 Pan Keyframe button: This button, to the right of the Pan slider, places a pan
keyframe at the current playhead location on the pan overlay. These keyframe
markers can be used in preparation for dynamically panning an audio clip’s output
from one stereo channel to another.
 Pan keyframe navigation buttons: These buttons, to the left and right of the Pan
Keyframe button, allow you to move the playhead forward or backward from one
keyframe on the pan overlay to the next.
 Reset button: This button deletes all marked keyframes on both the audio level
overlay and the pan overlay of the currently selected audio track and resets both to
their original values (0 dB for the audio level, and –1 for the pan level).
Level Keyframe
button
Pan Keyframe button
Reset button