This tutorial is for those want to establish a visual rhythm for a highlight reel or basic music video. Import your music for the project into Final Cut Pro, and then edit it to the Timeline. In this example, I’m laying the music to tracks A1 and A2 because I won’t be using the audio in my video clips. If you’re going to use the audio from your video clips, or lay in voiceover, edit the music to tracks A3 and A4.
Editing to the beat works best with music that you’re familiar with, so after you lay in the music, listen to the track a few times so you can become acquainted with the upbeats and downbeats of the song. At this point, you should be visualizing how the action in your video flows with the beat of the song.
Step 2
LOCK THE MUSIC TRACK
Click the track lock buttons to lock both music tracks. If you’ve placed your music tracks in tracks A1 and A2, and the video clips you are using have audio associated with them, locking the tracks ensures that you don’t blast away any of the music when you lay down slug — random filler from FCP’s Slug Generator — and video clips with audio.
Step 3
ADD SLUG TO THE SEQUENCE
Click the Generator pop-up menu and choose slug. Make sure that the playhead is at the beginning of the sequence, and then edit the slug that has loaded into the Viewer window into video track 1. Drag the end of the slug until it is the same length as the music tracks.
Step 4
ADD EDITS TO THE SLUG
Place the playhead at the beginning of the sequence, then press the spacebar on the keyboard to begin playing the music in the sequence. While the music is playing, hold down the Control Key and tap the letter V on the keyboard to the beat, to add edits in real time. After you reach the end of the sequence, stop playback. The red markers that appeared as you were tapping turn into through edits in the slug. The edits in the slug act as placeholders for the actual clips you will use in the show. Don’t worry if your first attempt is a bit sloppy; you can tweak the edit points later using the trimming tools.
Step 5
REPLACE THE SLUG WITH VIDEO CLIPS
Double click a video clip in the Browser to load it into the Viewer, and then make an IN and OUT point in the clip that captures the action you want to edit to the project. Place the playhead directly in the middle of a clip and click the Replace Edit button or F11 on the keyboard. The video clip replaces the Slug Generator. Perform a Replace Edit for the remaining edits. If you know you want to use a certain video clip during a particular high point in the music, you can go ahead and plug it in. You can move to any point of the timeline and replace your slug along the way.
Step 6
TURN ON AUDIO WAVEFORMS
Press the Command + Option and W at the same time to toggle on the audio waveforms in the Timeline. Click the Track Lock buttons to unlock the music tracks and enlarge the Time so you can see the waveforms clearly. With the tracks enlarged you can clearly see the ebb and flow of the music. The peaks in the waveform provide you a visual reference for where cuts should line up.
Step 7
ADJUST THE EDIT POINTS
Click on the Roll tool in the tool palette or press R on the keyboard. The Roll tool is great for adjusting those not-so-perfect edit points, because it does not affect the overall duration of the sequence. With the Roll tool, you are simply making clips longer and shorter. Before you begin adjusting edit points, you need to turn off snapping by pressing N on the keyboard. Turning off snapping lets you move edit points in smaller increments, so you can be precise.
Use the waveform to line up edit points with the Roll tool and other trimming tools.
Step 8
FINE-TUNE THE ACTION
Click the Slip tool in the tool palette or press S on the keyboard. The Slip tool lets you frame the action inside the clip; it doesn’t affect the overall duration of the sequence. Click inside of a clip and drag left or right to reframe the action in the clip.
Tools Used: Apple Final Cut Pro 6
Your Guide
Lonzell Watson
Writer/Director/Producer
Lonzell is an Apple Certified Final Cut Pro Professional and Certified Avid Xpress Pro user. He is the author of Final Cut Pro 6 for Digital Video Editors Only, the Canon VIXIA High Definition Camcorder Digital Field Guide, and iPhoto ’09 Teach Yourself Visually, and is the Instructional Designer for iMovie ’09 Portable Genius, all from Wiley Publishing, Inc. He is has also created Final Cut Express 4 Essential Training tutorials for Lynda.com. His work includes national commercials and television programs for PBS, Fox Sports, the Outdoor Channel, and C-SPAN, and video editing for pop superstar Mariah Carey. Lonzell is a syndicated content writer with hundreds of published tutorials that relate to Apple’s Final Cut Studio product line.
Lonzell Says Keep in Mind...
In this tutorial I’ll show you how to use filler, or slug, as placeholder clips to establish a visual rhythm for a highlight reel or basic music video. If you are newer to video editing, you may notice that your projects often start strong and end weak. If you’ve used up all the good footage in the beginning, you won’t have any interesting shots left to use toward the end. Try using slug and the "Replace Edit" function to lay down a rough cut and establish a visual rhythm. It will provoke you to work non-sequentially and to spread your best shots throughout the sequence. And remember, you don’t have to come out of the gate laying down perfectly edited clips to end up with something great.
Comments (21) for "Edit to the Beat in Final Cut Pro"
1.
Very well put. I have used this myself and it is a great way to let you feel the pace of the project, and space your best shots at the best beats.
Posted by Ken Harper on Tuesday, May 5, 2009 @ 10:56 AM
2.
Yah. I'm one who hasn't used it yet, but it's very succinctly put. Thank you. Am proceeding to use it immediately!
Posted by atomsound on Tuesday, May 5, 2009 @ 11:26 AM
3.
I use a different method. I listen to the music and lay in markers in the browser using the ` key. This fills the music with markers and gives me more freedom to have video hit around a beat, instead of always directly on it. Plus, I don't have to deal with a slug, and remove stuff from the timeline.
Posted by Anthony on Tuesday, May 5, 2009 @ 11:35 AM
4.
Great points, I edit band performances weekly and have done over 40 to date and use similar technique.
To take this a step further with a visual reference, I sometimes use two tracks of video with different color solids/slugs and after each cut, "cut" to a different color. That way I can watch the timeline and SEE and get a feel for the edits visually as they change color before dropping down any footage.
Posted by Tony Felgueiras on Tuesday, May 5, 2009 @ 12:06 PM
5.
I am new to Final Cut and this was so obvious I never would have thought of it...nice, thanks.
Posted by Mentorfilms on Tuesday, May 5, 2009 @ 01:12 PM
6.
Dude,
While this is likely helpful for many, do you realize that it's a virtual lift from what Capt Mench did over three years ago at http://proappstuff.com/proapptipsvideotutorials/879F6B61-CFF9-4FD1-8D43-FDF89605611A/3180E26D-9B39-4796-8A79-6D0E2BE23FA7.html
Posted by dg on Tuesday, May 5, 2009 @ 01:51 PM
7.
Glad to learn this tip. Avid was great for this but I never realized it was this easy in FCP. Perfect timing, have a music video coming online at the end of the month
Posted by J Hughes on Tuesday, May 5, 2009 @ 03:42 PM
8.
Great session. Even though I use Premiere Pro 2.0, I can see how I would apply this to my workflow.
Thanks,
TomElliott
Posted by Tom Elliott on Tuesday, May 5, 2009 @ 10:23 PM
9.
The Ctrl-V key command tip was new to me. Thanks!
Posted by Ben Bradley on Wednesday, May 6, 2009 @ 10:21 AM
10.
Open up the audio waveform and listen to the music and watch the peaks and valleys and mark them as you go is an easier and less cumbersome method. Skip inserting slugs.
Posted by John Moon on Wednesday, May 6, 2009 @ 02:08 PM
11.
For most projects I edit the video first like a feature film. I find if the edits work well than the music follows. For music videos, I like to just see the audio waveform and cut to that.
Posted by halfmac on Friday, May 8, 2009 @ 12:39 PM
12.
not sure quite why in and out point being marked when using the replace edit tool and why it is then being matched on the timeline always within the middle of the clip
replace edit doesnt need in or outs, it uses the playhead for viewer and timeline and does mark clip and overwrite based on which destination track is selected
the method described above will most likely end up with "insufficient content" warning in a lot of cases
Posted by ben scott on Monday, May 11, 2009 @ 04:43 AM
13.
Great tutorial! yaaayyy, this new for me in FCP..thanks
Posted by didien on Tuesday, May 12, 2009 @ 11:27 PM
14.
Sorry, but this is far from efficient use of FCP. The first give-away of that is always when someone thinks they have to LOCK a track! If you know your FCP, you next NEVER have to do that.
One can do this whole thing far quicker and efficiently e.g. with markers and the "Mark to Markers" command.
And yes, marking an In and Out when using the REPLACE function is utterly superfluous.
Posted by lin2log on Monday, June 15, 2009 @ 10:28 AM
15.
"Open up the audio waveform and listen to the music and watch the peaks and valleys and mark them as you go is an easier and less cumbersome method. Skip inserting slugs."
This is how I do it too
Posted by ankawa on Sunday, September 20, 2009 @ 02:29 PM
16.
Fantastic! So simple and a very good idea.
Thanks!
Bill
Posted by Bill on Tuesday, January 12, 2010 @ 01:02 AM
17.
Very nice tutorial. Of course those whacky internet folks can't help but chime in and add their two cents to what you've done here, but I say you've done a great job at presenting a valid technique. And you've reminded us to "spread out" the good shots. Thanks for the FREE knowledge my friend!
Posted by Stiles on Monday, April 26, 2010 @ 11:46 PM
18.
Thanks Lonaell, it's intelligent idea !
Posted by Neal Lathia on Sunday, August 29, 2010 @ 12:45 AM
19.
Good tutorial For Beginners
Posted by Avinash on Friday, January 7, 2011 @ 09:05 AM
20.
Good tips about the slug and the roll tool. I'd mainly differ by starting with the waveform clearly showing, and trying to be as accurate as possible in your first pass. I'd rather be able to play the sequence at half speed and have the playhead stay on screen for these kinds of things.
Posted by Rob on Friday, February 18, 2011 @ 10:15 PM
21.
great session and a great way to edit clips with music...thanx a lot....
Posted by Naveen Kumar on Thursday, September 22, 2011 @ 09:43 PM
Post your comments below
