Keyboard Mapping - Premiere Pro shortcuts in Davinci Resolve

I'm thinking about making the jump from Premiere Pro to Davinci for all editing. I want to use Premiere Pro's shortcuts, because I have gotten very used to them over the past few years. When I switch the Keyboard Mapping to Premiere in the settings, very few of them are correct. I've even tried doing them all custom, but I still run into problems getting things to work properly.

Is this happening for everyone, and if so, does anyone have a keyboard shortcut file they could export to me that they created using Premiere's shortcuts?

It wouldn't be a bad idea for Davinci to polish this - since there's a good chance that a lot of premiere editors might be jumping ship to Davinci in the near future ..

When I switch the Keyboard Mapping to Premiere in the settings, very few of them are correct. I've even tried doing them all custom, but I still run into problems getting things to work properly.

[b] Is this happening for everyone, and if so, does anyone have a keyboard shortcut file they could export to me that they created using Premiere's shortcuts? .

Hey Corey

I've trained several teams of editors (TV channels, post facilities and other) switching from one system to another over the years, and countless individuals (Avid to FCP7, FCP7 to PP, Avid to PP and lately, everything to Resolve)

Other systems also offer presets for switchers, and always some shortcuts transition well while others don't, as no 2 systems are exactly alike. Part of switching is in switching your keyboard shortcut mindset. And part of discovering a software is discovering its shortcuts.


My recommendation to you is to learn a tool with its native shortcuts, then slowly customize them as you go, rather than start by remapping everything to what you were used to before...

Eventually everything balances out.

When I switch the Keyboard Mapping to Premiere in the settings, very few of them are correct. I've even tried doing them all custom, but I still run into problems getting things to work properly.

[b] Is this happening for everyone, and if so, does anyone have a keyboard shortcut file they could export to me that they created using Premiere's shortcuts? .

Hey Corey

I've trained several teams of editors (TV channels, post facilities and other) switching from one system to another over the years, and countless individuals (Avid to FCP7, FCP7 to PP, Avid to PP and lately, everything to Resolve)

Other systems also offer presets for switchers, and always some shortcuts transition well while others don't, as no 2 systems are exactly alike. Part of switching is in switching your keyboard shortcut mindset. And part of discovering a software is discovering its shortcuts.


My recommendation to you is to learn a tool with its native shortcuts, then slowly customize them as you go, rather than start by remapping everything to what you were used to before...

Eventually everything balances out.

Thanks Hector! That's actually what I've been doing. Just out of curiousity, what's your opinion on the editing portion of Davinci in comparison to premiere or final cut? I'm running away from Premiere because of all its unsolvable bugs on my computer, and I'm a little worried the grass might not be greener on the other side. I have yet to get some more time in it in order to make that assessment. Seems good so far.

Thanks Hector! That's actually what I've been doing. Just out of curiousity, what's your opinion on the editing portion of Davinci in comparison to premiere or final cut? I'm running away from Premiere because of all its unsolvable bugs on my computer, and I'm a little worried the grass might not be greener on the other side. I have yet to get some more time in it in order to make that assessment. Seems good so far.

You're welcome

In regards to your question about Resolve's editing tools and how they compare to FCPX or PP (funny you didn't mention Avid...)

The short answer would be My opinion is super positive and that they compare fairly well with both.

Bit longer one is I can't think of that many essential editing features in PP that aren't in Resolve. The main one and most prominent would be the lack of a dedicated Trim setup/window/tool (A/B sides, frame counter etc').
This can be worked around but is definitely missing if heavy duty trim sessions are planned. PP's trim tool has evolved nicely, Avid's of course is near perfect.

Another point has to do with the overall stability of a system that has undergone huge changes, like Resolve did in past few years. You can sometime feel it when doing extensive timeline work (glitches, sub-frame gaps, actions that kill-crash the app etc'). But BMD is doing a great job at tracking and eliminating these and every update fixes more of them.
On the other hand, since Resolve is a veteran Online tool, it deals nicely with large timelines and is a quite full, very accurate and fairly stable video tool.

No NLE is always bug-free. I'm not sure which bugs are chasing you away from PP... But to be fair, Premiere as an editing tool has become quite impressive in my opinion. I can't think of many crucial editing related bugs it currently suffers from (better media manger/transcoding features are just borderline editing).

From my POV... PP's biggest editing bug is still the average PP users and the click-drag-move technique they mainly implement, instead of adopting deeper, more advance and complex editing techniques which the system today is capable of (and has been for a while. Adobe put a lot of effort into it)

I keep getting "Wows" in Sessions where I teach experienced PP editors advance timeline techniques and advance trim editing. So many of them react like they weren't aware of the existence of a deeper layer of editing, and of the revolution trim tools made in film/content creation history. This hardly happens with Avid editors for example, probably one of the reasons why still, so many things that matter are cut on good-ol' Avid. It is changing... and I believe won't be the case forever.

I like how Resolve adopted many things from RIP FCP7 (some extremely subtle I truly enjoyed discovering). It was a good NLE, and there are times where Resolve (as an NLE) feels like the FCP8 (or FCP9 if 12 was 8 ) we never got from Apple.

The reason I didn't mention FCPX is that its hard to compare it to anything but itself. The way its built and its relation to OSX makes it a very capable and unique editing tool, great for many projects. However, Apple's choice to steer away from the traditional construct of an NLE and from the way editors, on ANY system think and work, still makes me feel that same slightly bitter taste I felt at the 2011 NAB Supermeet where it was revealed.


I think all NLE's should adopt Resolve's timeline volume/dim feature.

Thanks Hector! That's actually what I've been doing. Just out of curiousity, what's your opinion on the editing portion of Davinci in comparison to premiere or final cut? I'm running away from Premiere because of all its unsolvable bugs on my computer, and I'm a little worried the grass might not be greener on the other side. I have yet to get some more time in it in order to make that assessment. Seems good so far.

You're welcome

In regards to your question about Resolve's editing tools and how they compare to FCPX or PP (funny you didn't mention Avid...)

The short answer would be My opinion is super positive and that they compare fairly well with both.

Bit longer one is I can't think of that many essential editing features in PP that aren't in Resolve. The main one and most prominent would be the lack of a dedicated Trim setup/window/tool (A/B sides, frame counter etc').
This can be worked around but is definitely missing if heavy duty trim sessions are planned. PP's trim tool has evolved nicely, Avid's of course is near perfect.

Another point has to do with the overall stability of a system that has undergone huge changes, like Resolve did in past few years. You can sometime feel it when doing extensive timeline work (glitches, sub-frame gaps, actions that kill-crash the app etc'). But BMD is doing a great job at tracking and eliminating these and every update fixes more of them.
On the other hand, since Resolve is a veteran Online tool, it deals nicely with large timelines and is a quite full, very accurate and fairly stable video tool.

No NLE is always bug-free. I'm not sure which bugs are chasing you away from PP... But to be fair, Premiere as an editing tool has become quite impressive in my opinion. I can't think of many crucial editing related bugs it currently suffers from (better media manger/transcoding features are just borderline editing).

From my POV... PP's biggest editing bug is still the average PP users and the click-drag-move technique they mainly implement, instead of adopting deeper, more advance and complex editing techniques which the system today is capable of (and has been for a while. Adobe put a lot of effort into it)

I keep getting "Wows" in Sessions where I teach experienced PP editors advance timeline techniques and advance trim editing. So many of them react like they weren't aware of the existence of a deeper layer of editing, and of the revolution trim tools made in film/content creation history. This hardly happens with Avid editors for example, probably one of the reasons why still, so many things that matter are cut on good-ol' Avid. It is changing... and I believe won't be the case forever.

I like how Resolve adopted many things from RIP FCP7 (some extremely subtle I truly enjoyed discovering). It was a good NLE, and there are times where Resolve (as an NLE) feels like the FCP8 (or FCP9 if 12 was 8 ) we never got from Apple.

The reason I didn't mention FCPX is that its hard to compare it to anything but itself. The way its built and its relation to OSX makes it a very capable and unique editing tool, great for many projects. However, Apple's choice to steer away from the traditional construct of an NLE and from the way editors, on ANY system think and work, still makes me feel that same slightly bitter taste I felt at the 2011 NAB Supermeet where it was revealed.


I think all NLE's should adopt Resolve's timeline volume/dim feature.

Thanks for the in-depth response - I appreciate it. It's also nice talking to someone who knows their stuff. I've spent hours and hours in adobe forums (and even with their technical support), and essentially got the equivalent of "did you try turning it off and back on". I'm not saying that they're all like that, but like you said - the average user doesn't adopt deeper, more advanced editing techniques - which usually boils down to a lack of technical knowledge. I simply couldn't get answers. My main issues were:
1. Every time I switched tools, Premiere would give me a spinning wheel for around 5-10 seconds.
2. Lumetri Color was incredibly slow when grading UHD footage (high latency). I proxy everything at higher resolutions (computer is a bit older), and I would think that proxied footage would grade faster. I never got an answer as to how exactly the software thinks when grading with a proxy file attached. Regardless, it was too cumbersome and the work-arounds weren't acceptable. Davinci does it (even with no proxy attached) with zero problems.
3. I use warp stabilizer a lot. With the new update, I have this issue going on:

https://vimeo.com/251497265/0946d68373

We narrowed it down to my renderer being set to OpenCL, so the guy at adobe told me I need to edit with GPU acceleration turned off from here on out. Again, not going to happen - way slower. I did however run into the exact same issue in Davinci, which I have yet to solve. This only happens with the newer version of the stabilizer. For some reason, my video card (AMD Radeon HD 6970M 2 GB) doesn't work well with rendering these stabilizations. The classic version works, but the stabilization isn't what I'd expect it to be - image still moves all over the place. I watched videos on how to use "strong" and "smooth" parameters, but still can't seem to get it. The updated version works fine - but then I get those waves in the video. I can't exactly update or revert any GPU drivers on my mac, since all that is built within the OS X updates. I'm at a loss... Which brings me to 4 -

4. Most recent update in Premiere doesn't even recognize my video card any more, so I don't have GPU acceleration.

5. Overall, the program isn't stable. I get A LOT of crashes, and I have constant beach balls. Davinci is smooth as butter. It crashes, but it also quits and reboots fast. I can just tell that it's well-built from the ground up.

With all these issues, I've jumped through all the hoops and diagnostic procedures to no avail. I understand that most of these could be solved with a new computer, but I'm not in the place to throw down on one right now. I just wish that more people in my videographer sphere used Davinci. I can't even think of one person who knows even the basics (or even what it is!).. and Avid - I have yet to get around anyone that uses that. My sphere is a bit lower on the production quality ladder. The cool thing is after I get really good at color grading, I'd potentially have a cool trade to do freelance for. I'm in Minnesota, and I'm not sure our market is super saturated with people like me who'd do a good grade for way less than a production house. I'm learning some cool tricks, and it's definitely my favorite part of any project. Here's a couple test grades I did last night. Let me know what you think! I don't think it's too bad for 8 bit H.264 footage.. Also not sure how all the colors translated after a run-through in photo shop to reduce the file size.

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SCREEN SHOT 2.png (599.23 KiB) Viewed 27623 times

I got a lot to learn, but it's cool being able to have that unique tool in your pocket.

The Premiere Pro shortcuts in Resolve are incredibly inaccurate. Might as well just ignore them and set up your own to mimic Premiere Pro.

On the issue of learning the new ones, I find PP shortcuts are much more sensible and are generally easier to use than the native Resolve shortcuts, so creating that custom set is worth the time.

The Premiere Pro shortcuts in Resolve are incredibly inaccurate. Might as well just ignore them and set up your own to mimic Premiere Pro.

On the issue of learning the new ones, I find PP shortcuts are much more sensible and are generally easier to use than the native Resolve shortcuts, so creating that custom set is worth the time.

I found it easier to start out with Davinci shortcuts, give it a little time to learn them, then change them one at a time to ones I was more used to as I saw fit. This way, there is nothing left unmapped (if you choose premiere shortcuts off the get-go, and customize from there, they'll be certain things left unmapped from the start). Some things I left the same though - seems more efficient with how the software works. Other things like "ripple start to playhead" and "ripple end to playhead" - those are going back to Q and W !

My recommendation to you is to learn a tool with its native shortcuts, then slowly customize them as you go, rather than start by remapping everything to what you were used to before...

Eventually everything balances out.

I believe that this is good advice. I do have to say that one pifall with Resolve in this regard is that shortcuts are not very conisitent or even available across multiple pages. E.g. Right Arrow does not move you one frame forward on the Fairlight Page; on the Fairlight Page you have to use K L. And Shift Right Arrow does nothing on the Color Page.

It's on thing to learn new shortcuts for a program, it's another to have to learn new ones for each page and consciously forget ones that are not available on certain pages.

It's on thing to learn new shortcuts for a program, it's another to have to learn new ones for each page and consciously forget ones that are not available on certain pages.

That's a persistent frustration -- nobody can remember different navigation keys for each panel, so there are constant false starts and misfires.

And, in Windows, failure of cursor keys to observe panel focus also regularly disrupts work. Move from Media to Edit, and shortcuts like "v" or shift+v will work in the Edit page, but cursor key operations (next/previous) are still in the Media page(!). The only way to avoid this head banger is with third-party macros which automatically mouse click the edit page, or reassigning next/previous to other keys.

New features are great, but these unaddressed impediments are no fun at all.

those are going back to Q and W !

I hear ya.

I know this thread is quite old but I read through it. A Cople of things. Firstly some of us who like resolve often have to use PP for various reasons. I.e. companies use it as standard or complex legacy projects.

So the PP shortcuts are important and if they get sorted they will ultimately increase the number of people using Resolve. So I think Blakmagic should take them seriously or just remove them. It's wasting a lot of peoples time.

Myself I cant even find Next Edit/Cut and if I don't make much progress in the next couple of days time going to have to abandon the whole 'Ile use this project to have a proper look at resolve editing' and go back to PP for everything. A real shame as I love resolve for grading.

IF theres one real significant hang up to useing resolve im finding it to be the keyboard commands. Ive used a number of different NLE's over the years but i'm finding resolves keyboard controls to be extremely problematic.

first major issue is that on a mac, Resolve maps the basic editing commands to the F9, F11, and F12 keys. On a mac keyboard this is mapped to your volume controls so this is a huge issue. Yes you can fix that in your macs keyboard settings but its really bad mapping to put those basic editing functions on those keys.

Second the resolve keyboard commands are difficult to find. You can see the difference in the preference settings for both programs. Premiere is far more user friendly in terms of finding the command you need. With resolve its a lot of searching, and then using the internet

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Third is even when switching the keyboard preferences to a Premiere keyboard. Nothing happens. Maybe i need to install my .kys file somewhere in a resolve directory? I like resolve a lot. But this is its biggest flaw. Im guessing Blackmagic wants you to buy a specialized keyboard so its not a priority for them in their development

"I'm guessing Resolve wants you to buy a BlackMagic keyboard."

That is their model yes ... relatively cheap software to induce you to buy hardware.

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

first major issue is that on a mac, Resolve maps the basic editing commands to the F9, F11, and F12 keys. On a mac keyboard this is mapped to your volume controls so this is a huge issue. Yes you can fix that in your macs keyboard settings but its really bad mapping to put those basic editing functions on those keys.

It follows the mapping of Final Cut Pro (Classic/Legacy)... so clearly not really a 'major issue'. Apple was very successful attracting users to FCP over many years. Was never an issue toggling that Keyboard Preferences setting.

Second the resolve keyboard commands are difficult to find. You can see the difference in the preference settings for both programs. Premiere is far more user friendly in terms of finding the command you need. With resolve its a lot of searching, and then using the internet

No disagreement there. The Keyboard Customization UI could definitely be better.

Third is even when switching the keyboard preferences to a Premiere keyboard. Nothing happens. Maybe i need to install my .kys file somewhere in a resolve directory? I like resolve a lot. But this is its biggest flaw.

Obviously, in some regards, the functions don't necessarily map one to one, so its never going to be a flawless experience for users making the switch... but yeah, a little bit more effort couldn't have hurt, it's a very bare mapping by default. As for your '.kys' file, that won't help you. The Resolve Premiere Pro keyboard layout is based on the default Premiere keyset, it doesn't read & translate personal keyset mapping files.

I'm guessing Blackmagic wants you to buy a specialized keyboard so its not a priority for them in their development

In the long term, if you stick with Resolve, I don't doubt that they'd like you to buy their keyboard and other hardware, but that's not what's happening here. Buying the Resolve keyboard won't magically make your Premiere mapping work... and if you need/want a colour-coded keyboard showing Resolve's own default keyboard mapping, to help you transition to & learn those shortcuts, then there are plenty of very much cheaper options that are widely available ... one option, check out a company called 'Editors Keys'.



All that said, my advice... try to learn the application's native/default keyboard shortcuts, and if at all possible, without a dedicated colour-coded keyboard. I've switched from one NLE to another (and back!) many many times over the years, and whenever I've tried doing that using a dramatically customised keyboard mapping (or relying on a dedicated colour-coded keyboard) then its come back to bite me. At some point you find yourself on a system and don't have your personal keyboard prefs file with you... and you're suddenly lost. Nothing works. Your muscle memory isn't triggering the operation you need, and worse, its actually triggering something else. Or you don't have your dedicated keyboard (or heaven forbid you have to use a dedicated keyboard for a different NLE)... and again, you suddenly realise you're in trouble, because you didn't realise how much you were relying on / guided by that keyboard. Conversely, if you force yourself to learn the default shortcuts then the new app becomes another weapon in your arsenal that you can operate anywhere, anytime.

Thanks Andy for the feedback.

Its been so long since i used FCP i forgot they had it mapped that way too.... no idea how i survived back then. But great point

Ill check out the editor keys website, thanks for the suggestion.

Id say for $40 its worth the money!!

https://www.editorskeys.com/collections ... 2940066895

I agree 100% with the rest of your thoughts. I think its crucial to learn the keyboard commands specific to an NLE. Even if the learning curve in resolve is steeper then what it should be. I can always find the answer with a simple google search, im just annoyed thats whats required.