If you’re a seasoned filmmaker, you know that when it comes to editing you just can’t beat the keyboard. We’re going to take a deep dive into changing your keyboard mappings in Resolve. You can watch the video or read the article!

How To Map Commands To Specific Keys

Let’s first look at mapping three simple commands to specific keys on the keyboard. We will do Mark In, Mark Out and Clear In and Out.

1. Click DaVinci Resolve in the top left and select Keyboard Customization. You can also hit Option + Command + K (macOS) on the keyboard to get to the same spot.
2. Select All Commands in the Commands column. Type “mark” in the right hand search box.
3. Locate Mark In and Mark Out.

The keyboard palette will display any current mappings or shortcuts that are setup in Resolve. You can remove these by clicking on the “x” by the shortcut, and you can add your own by clicking the plus sign.

1. Click the “+”
2. Type in the keyboard command you’d like to use
3. Click Save.
4. Enter a custom name to save your keyboard mappings.

Replace Existing Keyboard Mappings

If you try to assign a keyboard shortcut or mapping to a key that is already mapped to another task for the same area of the Resolve application, you’ll receiving a warning.

DaVinci Resolve will allow you to save the mapping, but it will not work. You must manually remove the one you don’t need. This is done by looking up the conflicting mapping and clicking the “x” to remove it.

View Current Mappings

To see active mappings for any specific key or key combination, simply click the key (or keys) on the keyboard palette which will highlight them in red. DaVinci Resolve will then display the current tasks assigned. To remove a mapping, click on it under the Active Key column, and then on the right either change or remove the assignment.

Multiple tasks can be assigned to the same key for different areas of the DaVinci Resolve application such as the Edit Page vs Fairlight, etc.

View Modified Keyboard Mappings

If you’re in the process of mapping your keyboard, you can view the current mappings by selecting modified from the drop-down menu in the Commands column area. This will display all of the mappings you’ve changed but haven’t saved yet.

Import, Export and Common Presets

When you open the keyboard palette, the top right displays the keyboard preset in use. The default is of course DaVinci Resolve. When you make changes and click save, Resolve will prompt you to name the mappings as a custom preset. This will then be the active preset even if you close and re-open Resolve, or change projects.

You can also also start by choosing custom default mappings from other non linear editing systems like Avid Media Composer, Final Cut Pro or Adobe Premiere. And finally, you can click the three dots to import or export a keyboard preset.

The keyboard command palette in Resolve allows you to create an ideal editing workspace that is portable to any DaVinci Resolve editing workstation!

If you’re like me, you’ve spent a lot of time working in various non linear editing systems. They each have their own way of doing things. The first thing I do on a new NLE is familiarize myself with how to do the common tasks required to edit quickly.

In Resolve, a fast way to place a clip in the timeline is to visit the Cut Page and drag the clip from a bin to the timeline. However this is impractical most of the time. I prefer the Edit Page over the Cut Page for 99.99% of my narrative film editing work.

Let’s look at some of the most common methods you’ll use from the Edit Page:

How to Smart Insert Footage

When you have a working timeline full of existing clips, sound FX and other items, you can’t just drag clips in as that will overwrite exiting clips. A common way to get a new clip into the timeline is to insert it. DaVinci Resolve calls this a ‘smart insert’ as it will push everything down the timeline.

Using smart insert will keep everything in sync on your timeline as all clips on all tracks will be pushed down to make room for the new clip.

First, make sure the right video and audio tracks on your timeline are active (red boxes on the left). Next mark an “in” and an “out” in the source clip (keyboard I and O). Then position your playhead where you want the clip inserted and hit F9.

And btw, as much as I appreciate Resolve’s default mappings, I prefer my own. You can fully customize the Resolve keyboard mappings.

How to Overwrite Footage

Instead of inserting footage, you can overwrite existing footage from your source clip. With the same in and out marks selected, hit F10 to overwrite existing material in the timeline. Instead of moving everything down to make room for the new clip, it will simply overwrite whatever is on the tracks.

How to Replace Footage

The replace footage feature is similar to overwrite, but used to replace only a certain area on the timeline. If you select an “in” on your source clip and then position the playhead over a section and hit F11, DaVinci Resolve will overwrite timeline footage either between two edit points on the timeline, or between a marked in and out.

Fit to Fill

Another option similar to replace is Fit to Fill. If you have two edit marks and you’re inserting source material that is shorter than the desired section on the timeline, you can use Fit to Fill to fill the entire space by slowing down the source clip. Obviously this only works in certain situations. Use Shift + F11 to insert source material as Fit to Fill.

Once you’ve inserted the source material if you right-click on the section in the timeline and choose Retime Controls you can see detailed information on how much the clip was slowed down, etc.

Tip: To access all of these tools when dragging a clip into the timeline, simply drag the clip from your bin to the right, over the timeline monitor window. Various insert options will show up on the right.

How To Remove Clips From The Timeline

Now you have a few ways to add media to the timeline on the Edit Page. But what if you’re removing? There are two primary methods of deleting footage from a DaVinci Resolve timeline:

Delete Selected

If you select a clip in the timeline, or mark an in and out in the timeline and then hit the ‘delete’ key on your keyboard, DaVinci Resolve will lift the material from the timeline. This leaves a gap where the clips used to reside.

Ripple Delete

Conversely, ripple delete will remove the material from the timeline and also remove any remaining gaps. Every track in the timeline will be kept in sync with a ripple delete. So if you use the blade two and cut two points across all tracks on a timeline, ripple delete will remove the selection and close the gap. If you don’t cut through the material on all your tracks, ripple delete will take affect on the select clip and try and merge the rest.

Ripple Overwrite

The ripple overwrite tool is like combining normal overwrite with ripple delete. It overwrites existing content, but if the clip is longer or shorter, the timeline is either extended or the remaining gap is removed. Use Shift + F10 on the keyboard for Resolve’s ripple overwrite.

These are not the only ways to add and remove media to the timeline in DaVinci Resolve, but these are my favorites! And I love that you can map all of them to shortcut keys on the keyboard.

Coming from a decade of using Avid Media Composer, I’m shocked at the tools available in DaVinci Resolve at such an affordable price point. Resolve makes it possible for new filmmakers to tell their stories without the price tag of other solutions.

If you’re new to Write & Direct this is the online film school for aspiring directors. Discover more on our film school details page! You can also book a free call.

This tutorial is written for DaVinci Resolve Studio 19. Adding audio fades are extremely easy and highly flexible in DaVinci Fairlight and Resolve, but not 100% intuitive. So allow us to clear the flog! With an open project, click over to the DaVinci Fairlight page (the music notes icon on the bottom of Resolve).

1) Add Initial Fade in Fairlight

If you right-click any edit point on your audio track, you’ll be presented with various cross fade options. Just pick one as you can adjust the exact frame count easily after adding. If your edit point has an adjacent audio clip, it will default to a cross fade. If the audio clip is isolated on another track, it will add the fade to the beginning (or end) depending on where you right-clicked on the clip.

Alternatively (and even easier) you can simply click the white indicator on the top left or right of any audio clip and drag it over to introduce a fade. This works for both audio and video tracks.

2) Adjust Track Height for Fairlight Tools

To access additional tools in Fairlight you’ll need to adjust the height of your audio track. Each track has an information/settings box on the left of the track. Move your cursor to the bottom of this area for the audio track you’re working with. When your cursor turns into a double arrow, click and drag to change the height of the track.

3) Adjust Fade Length

Now you can easily adjust the length and style of your audio fade using the white marker on the top of your track. Simply click and drag to shorten or extend the audio fade. You can also use the center dot on the fade to adjust the style of the audio fade.

4) Add Audio Fades Using DaVinci Resolve Edit Page

You can also work with fades on the edit page. Simply right-click or drag the white indicator as in Fairlight. You can also add them via the Effects palette, but this takes longer. First make sure the effects palette is open by clicking the Effects icon on the top right of DaVinci Resolve. Next, in the lower right effects palette, click on Toolbox. Here you can access various cross fades. Simply drag them onto your timeline in the desired spot.

The fades added via the Edit or Fairlight pages are accessible in each area. Personally, I like to keep all of my audio editing in Fairlight so everything is consistent. You also cannot control the type of fade on the edit page as you can within Fairlight.

“Rubber Banding” With Audio Key Frames

Another powerful method of manipulating audio is via audio key frames. You might hear people call it “rubber banding.” If you hear that term, they’re talking about adding key frames to a clip of audio in the timeline. To add an audio key frame in DaVinci Resolve or Fairlight with option + click (alt + click in Windows) on the gain line of your audio clip. Be careful to click on the actual gain (volume) line otherwise it will not give you the key frame.

You can also use the Inspector to add a key frame from the DaVinci Resolve edit page, but the keyboard method is much faster. And there you have it! Again, crazy simple but with Resolve Studio 19 freshly installed and everything at defaults, not always intuitive.

In case you’re new to external media and/or random array of independent disks (RAID) let’s real quick cover some key reasons why, as a filmmaker, you need to invest in RAID:

A RAID Array is FAST

An array of disks has an advantage over a single hard drive. When you copy your camera and audio data to the drives, the files are “striped” across all the disk drives in the array. The advantage of this is when accessed for playback, the video and audio files are read from all the disks simultaneously vs an individual disk drive. The speed increase is monumental.

RAID Can Provide A Safe Guard

RAID can give an extra layer of protection if we choose to setup our drive array as RAID 5 (there are various RAID options). In a RAID 5 array files are striped across all the drives along with parity information. If you have a drive fail mechanically, the parity information on the remaining drives is used to completely rebuild the lost drive when you replace the failed drive. It’s amazing.

SanDisk Professional G-RAID

My favorite brand of external drives is G-Technology. When I first started as a filmmaker, I witnessed drives from various manufacturers crash and burn. People lost valuable data. My G-Drives were rock solid and have served me well.

Now G-Technology is owned by Western Digital and resides under the SanDisk Professional product line. A popular option for filmmakers is the G-RAID Shuttle which can have 4-8 spinning disks configured in various RAID arrays. And it connects via Thunderbolt 3.

G-RAID Stripe & Sector Size Configuration

Now to the purpose of this article: Stripe size and sector size! When you hookup a new G-RAID to your computer and open the G-RAID Software Utility you can setup a new disk array and then a new logical drive on the array. You can also use the wizard to this for you.

WARNING: If you use the first two wizard options, you’ll lose out on a major performance option.

Use the 3rd option in the wizard which allows you to configure specific details of your array and logical drive, or manually create the array and then add the logical drive. Regardless of the method you choose, you’ll be presented with two choices that are key to performance:

Stripe Size and Sector Size as shown below.

Stripe Size

Stripe Size is the size of each block of data written as your video and audio is striped across your array of disks. For large files like camera and audio data, you want the largest stripe size you can configure so the data can be read and written with the least amount of work from the hard drives. A small stripe size means the disk arm have to perform more read operations to serve up the files.

Sector Size | 512 byte or 4K?

This is the one that isn’t documented very well. A sector is the smallest data area on a hard drive. All your files are split up into tiny sectors. Sectors make up the stripes of data.

Should you choose 512 or 4K for your logical drive on a SanDisk G-RAID?

You’ll notice the default sector size for G-RAID is 512 bytes. This was the most common size years ago for hard drives. However, the drives in your G-RAID support the newer 4K sector size. And just like the stripe size, a larger sector size means less work from the drive when you’re writing and reading data.

In my quest to determine the ideal configuration for G-RAID I contacted SanDisk Professional Support (i.e. Western Digital). They told me to use the 512 byte sector size as this would be better for efficiency and performance of the array.

But…I decided to do my own test.

I setup an array and logical drive using 1MB stripes and 512 sectors. Copied a file from an SSD drive to the array, and then back again. Since SSD is faster, this ensured an accurate test. I then toasted the array and set it back up using 1MB stripes and 4K sectors. Did the same write and read with the same file. No cable changes.

The file size was 60.41 GB. You can verify the setup from terminal (macOS) or with the G-RAID Software Utility by viewing info on the logical drive. From terminal, type:

diskutil info -all

Find your external drive to see the configuration details:

512 Byte Sector Size Results

The 512 byte sector test had a write time of 7 minutes and 57 seconds. Read time was 1 minute 35 seconds.

4K Sector Size Results

The 4K sector test write time was 1 minute 21 seconds. The read time was 1 minute 32 seconds.

I was blown away at the write time difference! It went from almost 8 minutes down to a minute and a half. That’s insane. And read time was also slightly better.

Even though the wizard (even if you select the video server option) and Western Digital support will push you towards 512 byte sectors for your logical drive on the array, my advice is to never do that. A 4K sector size will deliver the performance you need when cutting your movie!

New to Write & Direct? This is an online film school for aspiring directors. It teaches the craft from development through post production. You can learn more on our film school details page!