Pancakes! Huh?
For some time now, aficionados of Premiere Pro have touted its ability to do “Pancake” editing. Huh? Well, in Premiere, you can stack (get it? stack… like pancakes) multiple timelines to quickly access string outs or sequences of selects etc., and add them to a cut. This is also often cited – by FCP X critics – as something you can’t do in FCP X.
Now, this is a really nice feature… in Premiere. But, it’s a technique that is completely unnecessary in FCP X. Why? Because in X you have access to everything, always. Have a look at the video below for an explanation. It’s not too long and rambling… honest!
Compound Clips vs. Nesting
Another “criticism” of FCP X, and alleged benefit of Premiere, is that it allows you to use a sequence as a source, and FCP X does not. Again, this is false. In X, you just do it differently… using compound clips.
In Premiere, making a sequence into a Nested Clip to use as a source is possible, but it’s really not a great way to do it. The main reason is that you can’t easily reveal the multiple clips inside the Nest once you’ve cut it into a sequence.
You also can use a sequence as a source, but the track targeting madness involved in doing that, with anything but the simplest sequence, is… maddening. So you use “Pancakes” as a workaround.
In X, using a Compound Clip made from a source project is a great way to use an existing cut as a source, as getting back to the clips in the Compound Clip is simple. The video below illustrates this, but the difference can be summed up in these “instructions”:
How to break apart a Nested Sequence In Premiere
Ensure the nest toggle is off (upper left corner of timeline window), mark in and out on your nested clip, put the playhead at the top of the clip (in point) then match frame back to the nested sequence, then overwrite with the appropriate patching and voila your nested clip will be replaced with the contents of your original sequence.
How to break apart a Compound Clip In FCP X
Select the clip and press SHIFT-CMD-G.
Final Cut Pro X Babbling 
Thank you! 🙂
FCPX isn’t professional.
LOL
Yes, because the steps are very easy to do.
premiere is professional? because many steps to do it, then will become a professional?
This is so brilliant. It is SO demonstrative of the narrow-mindedness of the “elite” living in their comfy little “business as usual” world, where CHANGE or even the slightest VARIATION on anything they know to be “true” is unfathomable. The moronic “if it (FCP X) doesn’t or can’t do something THIS (as in Avid or PPro) way, then obviously it can’t to it AT ALL! End of discussion.” blather. Incapable of allowing the notion that one CAN actually do things differently, even if THEY are not aware of it and never got the memo, and that those alternatives can actually be BETTER. “If it ain’t broke…” nonsense, where one can see that it may not be “broke”, but it sure as hell is far from intuitive or practical and needs some MAJOR overthinking… something that only Apple has had enough balls to do and do REALLY WELL.
Yet another success story on your part of demonstrating exactly that.
I edit with AMC in my workplace, but my private jobs with FCPX. And i very like the X. Fast, simple and very stabile. X is cool and PRO software!
1) Last year I finished a two hour documentary in FCP Classic while reviewing X and Premiere. We choose X as a company and I wish I had it for that doc.
Since then my time has been spent cutting the marketing videos, overview videos, trailers… and I have found nesting compound clips super helpful. Many times these videos end up being different versions of each other. So the broll/music used in one, can be used in another. Nesting to the rescue! Take video one, compound it, cut sections into video two, break apart and tweak to perfection.
Easy, fast, fun.
What is even cooler is when you hold down the command key while selecting your in and outs it remembers in what order you selected them and they are all in order they need to be when you edit it on the story line.
Yep, can do a stringout, with clips in any order you want, before you hit the timeline. 🙂 Lake any CMD key selection, you just have to be careful to remember to hold it each time!
Another benefit of using X is that you drink a lot less coffees…… Good for your health….