10.5 Mixer colors: option for fader sections only (and some other customizations)

Cubase
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1

For 10.5 there’s now an option in preferences to have the entire mixer channels colored.

I would like there to also be an option in preferences to have only the fader section colored, and not necessarily the entire channel/rack section too.

Motivation:
Colored mixer fader sections brings the advantage of being easier to grab correct fader, make distinction between different channels, and bringing color coded information about channels. But - that does not necessarily mean that you also want the entire rack section covered with color stripes. It can be a bit too much of it.

Colors in the rack section can also interfere with colors used in the rack slots. I have not used 10.5 yet, but from a video it seems that it also colors e.g. the Strip slot headers in the rack, and these slot headers themselves can have different colors (if you set them up) to tell if they are active or not. The new coloring interfere with that, making it less obvious what’s active and not (since it coats almost everything - I think it should not cover color coded slot headers (or make it another preference)).

Anyway, by having the option of having only the fader section colored (and not the entire channel/rack section too), one can have a bit of both worlds. Colors where needed, but not drowning in them (even if I like how the colors seems to be subdued to be harmonic).
It would be good to also have a middle way choice, instead of a choice between all or nothing only.
As an additional option, of course.

Addition: if we have 3 color modes (dark, faders, all), then a button in the mixer itself to toggle between these color modes would be another improvement. (And also having the different slot areas more uniformly dark, also see post below).

Addition 2: it’s discussed in other threads if the mixer channel names should be colored or not. That could also be made a choice in preferences. But it should then be the subdued color to be “easy on the eyes” (the bright alternative to mirror the track list color will be in the tiny strip at the bottom in any case). Or even better, make it another preference to cater all taste (no color/subdued color/bright color).

Addition 3: Also the buttons (M/S/R/W…) around the fader section could have a separate preference too (dark or subdued color), since they are already color coded. And maybe the rack section also could be separated into the slot area and the possibly empty area below to have separate preferences. The fader value fields is another candidate for a preference.

Addition 4: Another idea is be to have an additional intensity slider to have different color intensity for the fader area and the rack area, see post below. And there should be uniformly darker color setting across the rack area, now it seems to be a bit different for different rack sections (darker/brighter). This should really be uniformed with the darker setting all the way through the rack area (and the empty area below).

It looks kinda good, but could be perfected into Mixer Coloring 2.0 with some customization. :slight_smile:
Not super important, but the functionality is already there, so it would just be a little adapting to some preferences where you want the colors.

2

+1 times a bunch

3

+1

4

+1 All great ideas that would improve the mixer by a big amount.

5

There is a option in Preferences to set the colour and brightness intensity. :wink:

6

I know that. This request is about what parts to color at all, not the intensity of all of the coloring.

But I suppose you mean one could set very low intensity of coloring of everything. That’s another sort of compromise, but it’s not the same as choosing what parts to have color (at any intensity one like) and which parts to have no color at all.

(I have not updated yet, so I just wrote what I thought after watching some videos about it - I like the colors, but I’m not very fond of necessarily having rainbow stripes painted all over it. Maybe it looks better when subtle at low intensity though. Still not the same thing as this suggested customization though.)

7

I don’t find the color/brightness settings all that useful. When you take is down enough for the rack section to look kinda OK-ish sorta then it is too low for the fader and vice versa. The low intensity looks like I spilled a bunch of different drinks on the mixer and it stained it.

I turned Track Pictures off because the colored strips made them look even worse than they really are.

8

Would you like to have two different intensity sliders (one for the fader section and one other for the rack area)? Or would you prefer to just turn off coloring for the rack area? Or to have both possibilities?

Having no coloring in the rack area makes sense since there’s already different kinds of color coding going on up there. So one can prefer that. Other people will prefer to tie the areas together with some color. But the areas may then need a bit different color intensity to look really good.

So that could be yet another customization: to add another intensity slider for the rack area separately.

That would also mean there would be another shade of color between the two areas. But that wouldn’t be a problem, it would just mean the channels get connected between these areas in a more discrete way (darker/less intense colors in the rack area).

Some sections of the rack area are darker than some other brighter areas. That darker color nuance looks better in the rack section. So it should be that darker color nuance uniformly all the way through the rack area (and the possibly empty area below). The entire rack area would look much better just by that. (There should still be separate sliders for color intensity, since you may want to e.g. turn up the color intensity for the fader section without affecting the rack section.)

Oh, and selected channel(s)… something should be done here. That grey thing doesn’t look to great… it should be highlighted in some other way (e.g. higher color intensity).