Eight Avid Media Composer Default Settings You Must Change Today

Screenlight by Josh Short

Recently I found out that I took my Avid Media Composer settings for advantage. I knew Avid inside and out after four years of tweaking, refining and using my settings daily. I regularly edited faster than I could think. Then it all came to a screeching halt.

A career, version and platform change all at once caused me to have to install Avid from scratch on a new system without my beloved settings. I jumped from version 5.0.3 to 6.5.2 and I went from a HP Z400 Windows desktop computer to a MacBook Pro laptop. Once I launched Avid, I went right to work changing all the default settings.

Say what you want about Avid, but the customizability of it is second to none. The following is a list of the eight standard settings that I think must be changed off default. I hope you can find something useful below if you are new to Avid or a seasoned editor.

1. Composer

Under the Edit tab, uncheck Auto-create New Tracks and Auto-enable Source Tracks.

Check Activate Record Monitor After Edit. This will speed up your edit. Let's say you select an in/out in the source monitor, then Overwrite edited it in your timeline. The source monitor will still be active after making this edit. If you check Activate Record Monitor After Edit you'll be able to keep on editing in your timeline. It may save a fraction of a second but those add up over time. read more...