The Transformative Powers of a Keyboard

Back in the days of linear A/B roll editing, CMX was a popular brand of edit controller, and the space bar on the CMX keyboard was labeled "ALL STOP." If you were in the midst of prerolling and edit and realized you have made a grace error, you could hit the space bar and the CMX would bring all of your machines out of edit mode. A nice feature.

It didn't take long for some enterprising entrepreneur out there to come up with a third part replacement for the spacebar key, labeled "Oh Shit!" instead of "ALL STOP." They sold a lot of them, and I probably saw them on about half of the CMX editors I'd ever encountered.

So what does this have to do with modern nonlinear editing and keyboards? These days, chances are you're using a Mac or PC as the core of your editing system, and you're probably using the keyboard that came with the system. Do yourself a favor and buy a custom keyboard, matching whatever editing software you use, be it Final Cut, Avid or Premier. Why?

A custom keyboard does a couple of things for you. First of all, it makes it easier to see what the keyboard shortcuts are, and I find it reminds of possible shortcuts I never really knew were there, simply because I'd fallen into a set of habits when I was editing. Second, and perhaps more importantly, from your client's point of view it transforms your generic computer system, "That Mac you use to edit video...", into a custom video editing workstation. It's amazing to me how having a colorful custom keyboard in the edit suite changes the perception of the system you're using in the client's eyes. 

After shopping around at NAB a few years ago we settled on the Logic Keyboard for our Final Cut systems.

Do you have a favorite keyboard brand? Share with us all in the comments!

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