One of my favorite features in Premiere Pro was the ability to nudge volume via keyboard shortcut. This made volume automation incredibly efficient and convenient — and when something is efficient and convenient, you’re more likely to do it. A lot.

DaVinci Resolve has a similar feature called “Trim Audio Levels.” In the Keyboard Customization window, you have multiple options — you can increase or decrease by 1 dB or 3 dB. I generally find 3 dB increments to be perfect, especially since dialogue is usually ran through a compressor anyway, so I use this trim option to perform macro volume adjustments, and the compressor will catch it at the end to fine tune it anyway.

I’ve mapped “Decrease by 3 dB” to the “[” key and “Increase by 3 db” to the “]” key.

Perhaps at a later date I’ll outline the exact layout and positioning of my left hand on the keyboard during editing in greater detail, but for now I’ll say this — I usually leave my index finger on the backspace key, my middle finger on the “+” key, my ring finger on the “-” key (these two keys let me zoom in and out quickly), and my pinky on the “P” key (to activate the pen tool in Premiere… I may change this now that I’ve migrated to DaVinci).

This positioning is highly versatile because I have bonus F9, F10, F11, and F12 keys above this row that act as cut, trim left/right of playhead, etc… And right below this row I have the [ and ] keys which I use to automate volume.