While there’s some VERY pro Steinberg people on here (As expected), it’s all quite a genuine love for the software. But credit to the mods and Steinberg staff here I’ve never thought that anyone was being silenced or censored - It’s a really great forum, and is a credit to the software (imo).
Probably a big part of why I enjoy using Steinberg products is this community as it feels that help is always on hand… That, and I’m comfortable with the surroundings I guess.
The userbase is much more mature than other DAW forums I’ve visited, too. It seems that most Steinberg users know what they want and aren’t taken in by ‘fads’ or quirky feature that a lot of other DAWs offer.
The only kind of colour customisation is very basic, and you can’t really colour elements as required - I don’t know if you been in the settings and seen it, but it’s really odd how you can’t just pick from a full colour pallette.
HiDPI scaling can be a bit hit and miss too, particularly with third party plugins and the Steinberg own plugins are woefully out-dated with tiny icons. So much needs a refresh, really.
There is, however, the project logical editor which can be used to recolour tracks based on text.
See here for example.
But the Studio One Colour Toolbar is a whole level better and far easier to setup. Cubase doesn’t have any option to add custom toolbars or buttons into it’s UI, which is where S1 really works well from a UI perspective.
You can expand the colour palette in Cubase too, but that’s about it really. It’s in the project colors setup section. Basically 32 colours and then you can have up to 4 tints of each.
I get that, it’s more modern and key developers from Steinberg were part of the team that built Studio One. So a lot of good ideas and experience was there at the start and it’s maintained a much fresher feel.
Other than Variaudio, which is unique to Steinberg, I don’t find S1 missing anything in comparison but it has many more advancements and workflow improvements. Such as sound variations, integrated pattern editor, user macros assigned to buttons, scratch pad, better window management, live looping via the arranger track, the splitter tool, the "project page "and linking of “song” files. etc.
Like I said before my head knows S1 is better in many ways, but Cubase has my heart - and this is why it’s so subjective. Sometimes you need to forget about the technical features and go with the DAW which makes you feel inspired - S1 never does for me, despite it’s achievements.
I’m probably not helping a great deal other than saying follow your heart really, they’re both great and none are ‘perfect’… 