After learning the basics of Media Composer in day one, I wanted to start working in the timeline. Before I got started, I watched a few of Avid’s video tutorials to familiarize myself with the common tools.

The Smart Tool seems like a fantastic feature in Media Composer. I remember having to switch back and forth between multiple tools in Final Cut Pro 7 (which isn’t too bad if you know the keyboard shortcuts), but I like that you can select several tools at once. For now, I am mainly using the mouse. But, once I get the hang of things I figured I could start learning keyboard commands. And I also like how keyboard-driven MC is. I prefer working with the keyboard as oppose to the mouse, so I am excited to learn the commands.

What I’m not a fan of is track selectors. I do not like that I need to constantly watch which tracks I have selected in order to move, add, or delete something. Hopefully, over time I’ll get use to it.

Another thing I do not like has to do with audio meters. In FCP7, when you pressed the backward and forward keys to move back and forward a frame, the audio meters would show the levels. That’s not the case in Avid. I often looked at them in Final Cut for finding when a person would red-line.

Edit: @Ital1anMeatball – who has been a tremendous help on Twitter – has informed me about the caps lock, which enables audio scrubbing. This does show audio levels as you scrub, but only temporarily.

I spent about an hour or two messing around in Media Composer until I decided to call it a day. So far, there’s lots of stuff I like about it and some stuff I don’t like about it. I’m hoping to do an extensive look at MC on day three.