Copy to Source Monitor
This won’t be new for some of you, but it’s a hidden feature and I use it so often that I thought I’d make mention of it.
Say you’re created a sound effect, or piece of music — anything you want to use again elsewhere. In other applications you’d Option-drag the clip in question, creating a copy at the destination of the drag. For some reason, Media Composer doesn’t support that standard operation. But it does offer you something that’s arguably more flexible: a quick shortcut to copy a selected clip or marked region to the source monitor. From there, you can edit it wherever you want. The shortcut, not visible in the menus, is Command-Option-C. Mark a region in the timeline and select tracks, or simply select a clip or clips. Then hit Command-Option-C. Your material instantly appears in the source monitor.
Note that if you copy selected clips they’ll appear with head and tail marks already assigned. That saves a couple of keystrokes. But if you marked a region instead, you’ll have to re-mark it in the source. Also note that if you select non-adjacent clips, MC will pad your selection with black, preserving their spatial relationship.
Here are two examples.
1. Copying clips.
Timeline before Command-Option-C:
Source Monitor after Command-Option-C:
2. Copying a region.
Timeline before Command-Option-C:
Source Monitor after Command-Option-C:
Splice Now 
July 27, 2011 at 9:32 am
Nice! No more Clipboard Contents in the pulldown menu. I need to buy your book.
July 27, 2011 at 10:04 am
Another option:
C is the default for Copy to Clipboard. Go into your Keyboard Settings and drag the Alt+Modifier to the C key. It will now allow you hit C and it copies directly to the source monitor. Saves you a few keystrokes.
July 27, 2011 at 11:08 am
I use Alt C for the same trick. Uses fewer fingers!
July 27, 2011 at 11:09 am
I can’t wait to astound and amaze my co-workers with this one. Thanks!
July 27, 2011 at 2:38 pm
Doing this is also how I “Uncollapse” a collapsed segement. I just step in to the collapse, do the copy, like Michael H. above, using the Alt-Modifier mapped to the Copy to Clipboard key, which copies the the contents of the collapse to the source monitor, and then step out, and edit it back to the sequence.
July 27, 2011 at 3:07 pm
Good suggestion. But there really ought to be an “uncollapse” button!
July 27, 2011 at 4:05 pm
I share your love of this feature too … if you copy to source monitor a section then immediately enable gang roll, you can compare two different video layers of a cut quite quickly, by viewing one layer on the source side and a different layer on the record side. Toggling source and record monitors with the escape key as you step through it.
For comparing animation and VFX versions on the same timeline I find that a great time saver than clicking on various video tracks in the timeline.
The alt modifier also works for lift and cut too!
July 28, 2011 at 7:23 am
That’s a good one. Thanks!
July 27, 2011 at 4:12 pm
Great tip! Thanks Steve! And like everyone suggested, I mapped the modifier key too.
July 28, 2011 at 3:55 am
I use this everyday, but I’ve only ever used it with an in and out marked; never with segment mode selections. I’m looking forward to trying that out. Thanks for the tip!
July 29, 2011 at 11:09 am
I love this feature and use it all the time…thought I was the only one! Most of the other editors in our shop use ctrl-c/ctrl-v, which ispretty clunky
July 30, 2011 at 7:06 pm
[…] AVID TIP – Copy to Source Monitor Jul 30 EDITING To see this tip comes from Steven Cohen, visit his SPLICE NOW blog. How to copy sequence content to your source monitor. […]
August 13, 2011 at 7:20 am
VERY helpful Steve. Thanks,
September 6, 2016 at 8:15 am
Anyone know if there’s a similar Command-Option-C feature in Premiere? I’ve gotten so used to copying to source monitor, am having much difficulty cutting in Premiere and not being able to do this. Not finding anything when I google.