Mastering the Control-S Shortcut in Final Cut Pro: Expand Audio/Video for Split Edits

Keyboard shortcut: ControlS

Final Cut Pro keeps a clip's video and audio together in one piece, which keeps everything in sync. But to make J-cuts and L-cuts, you need to work on the audio and video edges separately. That's what Control-S is for.

What Does Control-S Do?

Control-S runs Expand Audio/Video. It lets you view the audio and video of the selected clips separately in the timeline.

The clip is still one clip, and the audio and video stay linked and in sync. You simply get access to the audio's own edges, so you can trim the sound independently of the picture. This is different from detaching audio, which splits them into separate clips.

How to Use It

  1. In the timeline, select the clip (or clips) you want to work with.
  2. Press Control-S. The audio portion appears separately below the video.
  3. Drag the audio's start or end edge to extend or shorten the sound past the video cut. Extending the incoming clip's audio earlier makes a J-cut; extending the outgoing clip's audio later makes an L-cut.
  4. Press Control-S again with the clip selected to collapse it back.

Practical Tips

  • Collapsing a clip keeps your split edit; the overlapping audio is just tucked back into the single clip view.
  • Once clips are expanded, shortcuts like Shift-[ and Control-\ let you select audio or video edit edges from the keyboard.
  • Working with a clip that has several audio channels? Control-Option-S expands its audio components so you can adjust each channel.

Split edits are one of the easiest ways to make interviews and dialogue scenes flow, and Control-S is the first step to every one of them.

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