I, for one, won’t be fully satisfied until the UI for Cubase is so dark and neon-y, that it could pass as screen graphics for the upcoming TRON 3 movie. 
I think you just need to turn down the lights in your studio.
Kidding aside, what “buttons,” specifically, are you wanting to brighten? I don’t have a solution, I’m just curious.
Dark is the way to go and that is why so many GUI has follow. Its the professional look year 2013, 2014 and forward…
I have been advocate this for many years. Now they market seem to get it. Its easier for the eyes + it looks good.
We don’t want to go back to the bright old interface like in year 90’s and early 2000.
As you perhaps don’t know is that the whole Cubase 7 interface is customizable so you can set you own colors of own liking. If you take your time its very easy to customize and do. I have done that. 
About old Pro Tools. Unfortunately PRO Tools 11 still got bright arrangement window but as you have notice they have change it in the mixer view to much darker interface. I bet you will see that in next version of Pro Tools going to be as dark as all other modern interface like Cubase, Nuendo, Logic, Kontakt, Omnisphere, Vienna etc… Just wait and see!
Best Regards
Freddie
Search Cubic13’s posts - he posted (or maybe reposted) the buttons xml hack. Don’t know if it will still work in 7.5.
Are you saying that Black is the new Black?
Actually, the reason for all this is simple, modern LED backlighted LCD screens put out a higher amount of light than older screens that used a single fluoride tube, so if you have large LCD screens that are entirely white or light coloured the amount of light simply becomes to high for a lot of people if they spend large amounts of time in front of a screen.
I tried it in 7.5. Works Beautiful!
Your “i’m serious pro working with serious clients (they’re used to ProTools, go figure) and this looks too video-gamish” is so bumptious and so hilarious 
Especially considering dark is the way to go in the real world : everybody knows the more you stare at bright screens the more blind you’ll become. If you’re serious, you’ll want your screen to be darker. As for your clients, they’re not serious people if they need to be reassured by something looking like what they’re used to know. Your serious work should convince them.
Well I have read for example on the adobe coloscheme that it was researched and prooved that longer workperiods with white color scheme and black color scheme the majority of the testpanel members found it easy to work with the black scheme. This conclusion only after hours and hours work.
The explanation of brighter leds of today also holds it arguments.
In real life I wear contact lenses and after hours of work (I’m a DBA in my realtime day to day soap) I can confirm this.
Greetings,
Menoj
With all due respect, this is the kind of cherry picking of facts that lets politicians create any reality they like.
I work in Adobe CS a -lot-. I’ve commented many times that I think it’s the best UI around. But it’s ‘dark’ because ‘dark’ works best for -graphics-. I also work in MS-Office a lot. And it too is excellent. But it’s very -bright- because it’s mainly about words and numbers. And words and numbers are best dealt with on paper. Don’t believe it? Look at this forum. Easy to read, isn’t it? Ever visit some of those gamer fora with reverse text? Talk about eye strain.
IMHO, Cubase was actually far more usable in earlier (brighter) versions, but that’s not just a colour scheme issue; it’s more of a design issue. There were far fewer hidden functions, far fewer graphic inconsistencies and far fewer weird things like the Window On Top issue. Even things like fatter scroll bars which look ‘uncool’ were MUCH easier to use.
In short, it’s not the -colours- that are the primary reason Adobe CS is easy to work with, it’s the -design- and window layouts. MS Office is bright and also very well done. Consistency and usability is really the key.
—JC
This forum is actually black on grey … and fairly dark grey at that
Up until the mid 90’s, with the exception of a couple of early Mac’s and Atari’s I stared at a Green/red/yellow/white on black background for all my computer work, and by far the easiest on the eyes long term were the old phosphor green on black IBM screens, they were so sharp it was unreal.
Paper is bleached white because the only economic colouring agent for ink in the decades following Gutenberg was soot and the natural brown colour of paper did not provide enough contrast with bad print so to enhance the contrast people started bleaching the paper white which was easily done with urine and sundry other chemicals, there is nothing inherently more natural about black on white just that people are more used to it.
With all due respect, this is the kind of cherry picking of facts that lets politicians create any reality they like.
Do not know how to exactly take this (English isn’t my mothertongue), but to clarify what I said before:
Adobe has done some extensive research regarding the colour schemes and came to the conclusion that dark schemas do work the best in longer periods, period! It was al online on the adobe site when they released CS 5.
The forum lives in about a 1024 px wide “document sized” window on my screen and it not edge-to-edge fullscreen across my two, 30" monitors. If it were, I’d be wearing sunglasses right now. 
At night, a darker version of the forum would be welcome and more readable. It’s like staring into a flashlight.
As for a poorly designed gamer forum, you’re picking the worst example. There are many palette choices that would not have to be so scintillating.
As much as I personally prefer the darker Cubase look, Studio One may have struck the perfect balance. Also, Sonar X3 strikes a good balance in places, but its mix console is too bright for my liking.
The problem with Cubase’s design is that they’ve painted themselves into a corner. The design would not hold up well in lighter themes.
They have a lot of UI “flattening” and gradient-taming to do before it can truly work in both light and dark themes. I’ve noticed they seem to be flattening certain areas, so perhaps this is the path they’re on. It’s hard to tell, the UI is kind of a mess right now.
Flat + skeumorphism-oriented design hybrids are really, really hard. No one has nailed this yet. Apple iOS 7 is still struggling with those two ends of the spectrum – they’re gone mostly flat, but still have raised toggle switches, etc. Also, the bright white design of iOS 7 is horrid for a device that puts out as many lumens as a small flood light. Clearly, they’re catering to how it looks in stark-white ads, over real usibility. I predict we will see a dark theme version of iOS 7 soon – the dark keyboard in iOS 7 that pops up in some contexts, portends this.
This is absolutely correct, although it should be noted that this is with current monitors that have good resolution and brightness but limited sharpness and almost no colour depth (6 bits on average, even early budget DVD players had 11 bit dacs). With greater colour ranges available in the future (hopefully) we might get back to tonal user interfaces (i.e. neither dark nor light, but shaded hues).
Like all politics, people fit their ‘facts’ to match their feelings. Some people like ‘dark’, some people like ‘bright’.
Adobe went ‘dark’ because, IMO, ‘dark’ works better for graphics applications. MS-Office apps are ‘bright’ because most people prefer bright for text and numbers.
The main thing is that they spent a TON of time coming up with a -consistent- UI. I enjoy both UIs for that very reason. I have no desire to endlessly tweak either because they both work well.
My contention is that Cubase UI tries to have it both ways. IMO they need to provide -more- colour options (text colours, button brightness, etc.) to satisfy both camps. But MUCH more importantly, they gotta get more -consistent-. It’s the fact that so many functions work and look one way in one part of the program and then work and look another way in another part that is maddening. Of course, they could grant my wish and make a consistent UI that mimics an iPad and then… I might have to jump ship. -That- is what scares me most about the new design direction.
—JC
It’s not just colour choices.
There is simply a LOT of needless -thought- when using Cubase… As they eye moves quickly between panes one has to do a double-clutch a lot: Is this the right button? Have I selected the correct track? What does that column -mean-? It gets tiring.
+1
They also reduced the contrast of the numerical meter readouts.
It’s now gray on dark gray.
Often impossible to read ( dark environment with dimmed displays, here ).
Not good.
Please bring back “ease of use” !!
Thanks, Jan