Hey guys, whats up.
My name is Serge, and welcome back to my channel.
Over the last couple months,
I’ve been using a new tool to edit all my videos with.
The Loupedeck CT.
A dedicated controller for photography
and video editing software.
This isn’t meant to be a replacement for a keyboard or a trackpad,
rather it’s meant to compliment them,
and using all three together,
will give you the most seamless and quickest editing experience.
So today, we’ll take a look at how mine is set up,
and how I use with Final Cut Pro.
Before using the Loupedeck CT,
there’s a couple steps you have to take to set it up.
First, you need to download and install
the Loupedeck software from their website.
You also need to grant the proper permissions for automation.
To do this, open system preferences,
go to security and privacy,
select the privacy tab,
and grant Loupedeck access for Automation.
For the Loupedeck CT to function properly with Final Cut Pro,
the keyboard input source needs to be set to UK or US english.
This can also be set up in System Preferences.
And last, you need to select color wheels
as your default color correction setting.
With Final Cut Pro open,
click on Final Cut Pro in the menu bar,
and select Preferences.
In the general tab,
from the Color Correction dropdown menu,
make sure Color Wheels is selected.
Our Loupedeck is now ready for use with Final Cut Pro.
As soon as you open Final Cut Pro,
or one of the other supported apps,
the Loupedeck CT interface
switches to a dedicated set of controls for that software.
In Final Cut Pro, you can skim through your timeline using the Jog wheel,
zoom in and out on your timeline using one of the dials near the top,
blade your clips using one if the physical square buttons,
use one of the custom commands assigned to the touchscreen buttons,
and much more.
If you’re ever not sure what one of these commands is,
just long press the button,
and a description of the action assigned to that button
is displayed on the touchscreen inside the Jog wheel.
Using these default controls will significantly
speed up your workflow, but as I quickly learned,
to get the most out of this tool,
you need to customize it to the controls you use most frequently.
To customize your Loupedeck,
click on the Loupedeck icon in the menu bar,
and select open setup.
A window is displayed with a picture of your Loupedeck.
Here, you can select the different control space elements,
switch between different workspaces,
and fully customize most of the buttons and touch screens.
You can either modify one of the three existing workspaces,
or you can create your own custom workspace.
Click on the plus button in the workspaces menu,
and give it a name.
When you select this workspace,
you’re presented with a blank slate,
where you can add your own set of custom commands.
Here’s how I set mine up.
For the jog wheel,
the skimming feature in the default set of controls,
isn’t overly accurate,
so I set mine up to navigate in 1 or 10 frame increments.
Select the Wheel element at the top of the screen,
and on the right hand side, click the plus button.
Scroll down to the two button vertical setup,
and click it to add it to your controls.
Drag it up to the top to set it as your default control.
On the left hand side,
in the search field, type in 1 frame.
Select the Navigate 1 frame action,
and drag and drop it over the top half of the wheel.
For the bottom half, search for 10 frames,
and drag and drop this action over the bottom.
Now, in Final Cut Pro,
selecting the one frame button and turning your wheel,
will skim your timeline one frame at a time.
And selecting the 10 frame option,
will skim through your timeline 10 frames at a time.
Using this skimming option,
removes the play/pause button from the wheel controls.
What I did, is added this function to the Save button,
since there’s no need to save your work in Final Cut Pro.
To do this, select Square elements near the top,
and in the search bar, type in Play.
Scroll down to the Play/Pause action,
and drag and drop it over the save button.
Next, let’s set up one of the touch screen buttons.
When I edit my videos I love using compound clips,
so I’m going to set this up as one of my buttons.
Select Touch elements at the top of the screen,
and in the search field, type in compound clip.
Click and drag the Compound Clip shortcut
over one of the squares.
Now, all I have to do to create a compound clip when editing,
is just tap this button on my Loupedeck.
The setup for my dials is very similar to the default editing setup.
On the right hand side,
the dials are used to zoom in and out on my timeline,
change timeline clip appearance,
and waveform height.
I did change the dial controls on the left side.
I hardly ever use the nudge clip function,
so I removed it by dragging it to a blank part of the window.
I moved the select clip function to that dial,
and assigned a volume control to my top dial.
You can assign any built in function
or keyboard shortcut to pretty much any key on your Loupedeck,
but the ability to add custom commands to these buttons
is where this tool really shines.
The Loupedeck CT allows you
to combine a number of different commands into a macro,
and assign that to a single button.
Let’s take a look at an example.
When I edit voiceovers,
wherever I need a pause in my audio,
I add a gap clip that is 10 frames long.
To do this, I have to place the skimmer where I want the gap,
press Option W to add a default gap clip,
select it,
press Control D to set duration,
type in 1, 0 and hit enter.
All these steps can be combined
into one custom action on the Loupedeck CT.
In the Loupedeck window, on the left hand side,
click the add custom action button, and give it a name.
Below that, you have three options.
You can either add a keyboard shortcut,
add one of the existing actions,
or add a delay between the actions.
For my first step, I need to add a gap clip,
so I’ll select shortcut,
press the Option & W keys at the same time on my keyboard,
and confirm this step by clicking the checkbox button.
Next, I need to make sure the playhead is over the gap clip.
I’ll hit the plus button to add another step,
select Action,
and in the search bar, start typing jump.
I’ll select the Jump to next frame action,
and drop it in my steps window.
To select the gap clip in my timeline,
I’ll add the Select Clip at Playhead action as my next step.
To set the clip duration,
I’ll add a Control D Keyboard shortcut,
and to enter the value,
add a keyboard shortcut for each individual number.
I’ll click save.
I can now open the custom actions folder,
and assign this custom command to one of the touchscreen buttons.
Now, in Final Cut Pro,
when I need to add a 10 frame gap clip,
instead of going through all the steps again,
I can simply just tap my custom button on my Loupedeck,
and all the steps of adding a 10 frame gap clip are performed for me.
For my custom workspace,
I’ve gone ahead and added a combination of keyboard shortcuts,
built in Final Cut Pro actions,
and a few Custom Commands that I use most.
I’ll leave a link in the video description to my complete list,
as well as a download link for my custom profile I have set up.
If you want to use it as is,
or as a base to your own custom profile,
click the link in the video description,
and download it from my website.
After download, all you have to do
is click the gear icon in the bottom left corner,
click the Import button,
and select the zip file you just downloaded.
Your Loupedeck CT will now be set up
with a curated list of actions I use most when using Final Cut Pro.
Last thing I want to show you today,
is how to assign a button to the custom workspace we created today.
If we select Custom round elements at the top of our window,
and hover over number 6, as you can see
there’s no custom action assigned to this button.
So what we’ll do is just shift over
all the commands to the left of it over by one number.
With the number one spot open now,
select the workspaces folder,
and drag the custom workspace over to this number.
Next time you open up Final Cut Pro,
this will be the default set of commands on your Loupedeck.
The Loupedeck CT can also be used
with a number of other photography
and video editing apps such as Premiere Pro,
Photoshop, Lightroom and many more.
Each application comes with it’s own set of individual controls,
that can all be fully customized.
If you use one of these apps to make a living,
the amount of time Loupedeck CT will save you
will be well worth the money .
And a huge thank you to Loupedeck
for sending me this unit for testing.
After using it for a couple months,
I don’t think I could go back to editing without it.
Highly recommended.
Thanks for watching, and I’ll see you back here next week.