Auto Channel Colour Problems

Cubase
#1

The lack of channel-type colouring wouldn’t be too bad if I wasn’t having the following issue.

If I add a VST Instrument to the VST Instrument rack, the channels that subsequently appear will ALWAYS be the same shade of mid grey.

If I create one new MIDI, Group, Audio, Whatever track, it will ALMOST always be the same shade of blue. Sometimes it will be a random other colour, but often it will be the same shade of blue.

If I create multiple tracks, then ALMOST always the first track will be that same shade of blue with following tracks following the colour order as set in the track colour list.

As a result, I end up getting projects that start to look like this:
http://imgur.com/nZFL3

Of course I could manually change the track colours, but it would be nice if Cubase wasn’t automatically deciding everything should (almost) always be the same colour!

#2

Have you set Auto Track Color Mode to something other than ‘Use Random Track Color’?

#3

Ahh, it was set to ‘use previous track colour +1’’, which would explain it.

I’ve changed that now. Thanks!

#4

Voilà!

#5

Afraid I’m bumping this as I’m still having trouble with track colourings. I now have, as suggested track colours set to random.

HOWEVER:

Whenever I drag audio into Cubase from an external source (such as FX librarian Basehead) and into blank space in the arrange view so it creates and new audio track, that audio track is ALWAYS the same mid-grey.

Whenever I create a new VSTi in the VSTi Rack, the ‘audio’ track (not the midi track) for that instrument is ALWAYS the same mid-grey.

So the only tracks that get colour are ones where I have specifically told Cubase - ‘Create a new track’ somewhere. Anything else just gets mid grey. So I’m ending up with projects that 90% of tracks are midgrey and 10% are a clutch of rainbow colours. This is wrong.

#6

Sorry to resurrect this thread, it’s an old post but I just found it while searching to see if anyone else shared my problem.

I can confirm the same thing: regardless of the track color setting in the Preferences, files dragged from the Pool, Media Bay, the O/S, brought in via OMF, or imported from any other source will always be grey. They only tracks which seem to respect the Preferences setting are ones created via the Add Track dialog.

This means that if you import a 40 track OMF session session your colleague was working on, you have 40 tracks of grey. Spend extended time in Media Bay hand-picking 15 sound effects for your next cue, and you get 15 grey tracks. Import a folder of audio files in the Pool and add them to the project, yup, they’re all grey.

A purely cosmetic issue of course, but that grey is depressing :wink:

#7

How about if one would be able to select several tracks, and then use function “Colorize” ?

Sometimes I want to change color of tracks afterwards, and come sort of automatic colorizing would be welcome.
Say, colorize by type - to colorize by track type.
And, colorize by group - to colorize in same color as the group the track is routed to. Maybe with option to lock color to group routing, if routing is changed, color changes too.
And, colorize by folder. Maybe with option, if track is moved to other folder, color would change automatically to that of other tracks in folder.

Color schemes could have shortcut presets - say you want to temporary color all tracks by routing, one click could do so, and then when you don’t need that coloring anymore, you turn it off and return to previous coloring. Something like with windows layout…

Anyway, just a few ideas that could be usefull.

#8

Oh totally, that would be amazing – batch coloring! Right now there is a “Use Color for Similar Tracks” command in the Track context menu, but this makes all tracks of the same type the same color, and sometimes I want different color just so I can tell them apart. Anyway, anything but that grey :wink:

Cubase has become a very cosmetically pleasing app over the years, there’s really just this one lingering aspect left…

#9

OK I’m being driven crazy by this…I just spent an hour sifting through all my tagged FX in Media Bay, and have dropped 20 of them into the Project Window. I now have 20 gray tracks. Drag and drop should respect the color settings that you set up in the Preferences…

#10

Yep, it’s still really annoying for me.

Some acknowledgement from Steinberg would help.

As would other users expressing the same issues.